Aid Eric Zeplzauer's Fight for Health

Hello my name is Megan Zeplzauer. Many know my husband Eric as he’s always been a great friend, brother, son, father and active hockey player at JCC. The time has come where we need your help. Last year Eric was experiencing some chest pains and shortness of breath. We went to the doctors who heard a heart murmur who then referred him to a cardiologist at the U of M in Ann Arbor. After many tests, scans we later learned that Eric has hypertrophic cardiomyopathy. It’s a thickening of the heart muscle. He was then prescribed medication that costs thousands of dollars however through an insurance program only costs us $10. However in recent weeks that program ran out and we were unable to get anymore medication. Eric then started to get joint pain in his knees and shortness in breath again. We decided to go to the doctors. Our amazing Dr then wanted to do a complete blood panel on him since it had been a few years. Tuesday, July 23 I received a phone call from a on call Dr at the hospital that Eric needed to come in immediately. His blood volume was low and his platelets was dangerously low. Eric then went to the hospital when they ran more blood work and started one of many blood transfusions. Yesterday, July 24th they ran another more extensive bloodwork and unfortunately a marker called Hairy Cell Leukemia came up. A CT scan showed his spleen is 36cm. More transfusions were done and that brings us here today (July 25th). A biopsy was done today and it can take 3-5 days for us to get the results back. Eric is unable to leave the hospital until his white blood cells can stay at a healthy level.

Eric is the sole provider for our family. He’s already missed two days of work and it looks like he will be in the hospital for at least a week if not longer once we know what the biopsy results are. Tomorrow is Lucas’s 3rd birthday and it looks like we will be celebrating here at the hospital. Erics insurance can only cover so much and with the mortgage and the other bills we are worried. Any and all help is appreciated as of right now we don’t know when he’ll be back to work. I will continue to do my best to keep everyone updated. Thank you for everyone’s thoughts, prayers and offerings of babysitting.