In May of 2025, Matthew Jay was working at his Trader Joe's job and had to go on medical leave due to his repeated unbearable back pain. After many appointments, x-rays, CT Scans and MRI's, it was determined that he had significant damage to his spine and required spinal fusion to restore his back so he could return to his job...which he loved dearly. If you know Matt, you know he has THE Trader Joe's personality.

Matt's story, which many of you know, includes a an incredible spirit and recovery from a seemingly hopeless state of mind and body and a lived experience that many view as a "miracle".

On December 8, Matt had a planned spinal fusion which resulted in his not being able to walk immediately post surgery. He had an emergency secondary surgery to address the paralysis which unfortunately did not change the outcome. Subsequently, he was transferred from hospital to an inpatient rehabilitation program for intense physical therapy and occupational therapy. At this time, the Dr. and Treatment team cannot tell us anything with the exception that there is nothing presenting on both the new CT Scan or MRI indicating spinal cord damage but as of now, they are treating this as a spinal injury.

Many who know Matt believe he will absolutely recover from this due to his perseverance, his strong spirit and his commitment to living a spiritual and sober life. I am one of those people.

Matt is scheduled to come home on December 31. He will have spent 3 weeks in rehabilitation with little to no real progress to speak of. This is still 2 weeks away which gives us much hope.

As the world would have it, he was informed on Monday that he will no longer have health insurance as of 12/31/2025, due to not working the number of hours required to be eligible for health insurance through Trader Joe's.

We are at an absolute loss as to how to manage this new plot twist. We have depended upon Matt's wonderful insurance to heal us both this year as I had spine surgery in January of this year. I continue to have upcoming tests, procedures, and physical therapy to address my lumbar spinal problems which resurfaced after being attacked by a neighbor's dog in April.

We are going to opt to pay for COBRA at a cost of approximately $1500 per month (a $1300 increase from what we have been paying through Matt's job for the same insurance) due to needing the same level of care, a less stressful transition with Matt coming home and needing a significant amount of daily care from PT and OT as well as all of the other needs of a person who is confined to a wheelchair.

As a business owner, I do not have sick time, vacation time or any other protections for such a big and unexpected event such as my husband not being able to walk or care for himself in many ways. If I don't work, we don't have a home. I do have Family Leave available to me but the amount of money that is provided by that does not even cover our mortgage.

We will begin the long and arduous process of applying for Disability and every other social program that Washington has to offer. We have a wonderful Social Worker and Case Manager who are helping to get this ball rolling.

In the short-term, Matt coming home challenges me to make our 2 story home somewhat ADA accessible. This will not be a small task as well live in a community with an HOA that will not make this an easy process for us. Our home has steps just to get in (all 3 ways) which means we must put in a ramp in some way that is up to HOA standard but not necessarily permanent. This requires hiring a company to do this.

We do not know how long this will take for Matt to learn to walk again and if Matt will actually even walk again. His getting retrained for a new job at 58 years old will be difficult but not impossible and he is ready to look at options for that. Personally I am hoping he can get a remote job selling cruises so we have a perk when the time comes.

So, we are going to GoFundMe to offset some these new and unexpected costs and are hoping to reach far and wide so as to not create hardship for anyone who wants to contribute to this.

We will update as things progress and pray for more miracles hourly. Please feel free to pray, light candles, come sage the state of Washington (as we have both had injuries since the day after we moved here.) We still love Washington and hope Washington will love us once again.

Thank you from the absolute bottom of my heart and soul.