Defeating an Illness that almost took my life

My brother Marcus is 34 yrs old, a manager at Suncorp here in Melbourne. He is a single dad of two children Phoenix 8 and Winter 4. Even with a strenuous work regime, he manages to have his kids every fortnight, always participating in their activities and sport.

Late August, he began feeling unwell. Lethargic and drained, assuming it was due to being run down, he ignored the signs and kept going. Then on Saturday the 25th of August things took a turn for the worse. After taking his son to his weekend activities, Marcus crashed in bed feeling really unwell, burning from temperature, falling in and out of consciousness. Pheonix and Winter noticed that something was wrong and quickly called the ambulance then his mum and prompted them to come immediately and help his dad. When the ambulance arrived, Phoenix managed to provide all necessary information about my brothers name, age, occupation and allergies and gave them a detailed account to what has eventuated that day. My brother went into cardiac arrest upon arriving at the hospital and was resuscitated. My nephew saved his fathers life.

Once being resuscitated my brothers temperature rose and his kidneys began to shut down. On Sunday the 26th a family meeting was called by hospital clinicians and my brother was diagnosed with meningococcal sepsis. He was already on dialysis for his failed kidneys by this stage and they were about to put him on life support. The doctors told the family that Marcus would have to have both arms cut open from the wrist to the elbow to alleviate the pressure and assist blood flow.  Clinicians were in shock as meningococcal usually attacks children, adolescents and the elderly, leaving his diagnosis a 1 in a hundred thousand chance of catching this disease at his age. The fact he was a fit middle aged male made this possibility so rare, the doctor providing the information was baffled. They didn’t know if he would survive.
Vacuum-assisted closure was administered to both arms, a painful procedure that is changed every couple of days. He was in ICA in an induced coma for approx a week, whilst his kidneys stayed on dialysis weeks after.

Soon after my brother awoke from coma he had to have his right thumb and the tips of three of his fingers on the right hand amputated. Due to the thumb bone totally destroyed from the illness, the plastics team decided to sew his hand into his groin for five weeks in attempt to regrow some tissue to his hand, to provide some extra surface area for stability. After five weeks his hand was removed from his groin, sewn closed and left to heal. In the meantime, his body was rejecting his feet. They had turned completely black and the circulation was impossible to detect. Slowly his toes shrivelled up and died. His body began what they call pre amputation stage where it started getting rid of the dead limbs. Excruciating pain daily, pain medication causing side effects, my brothers will stayed strong. Every visit he sits with the kids providing advice and positive affirmations. His love of living grows stronger every day. He spent every day of his time in hospital so far complimenting staff and thanking them for their assistance and time.

In November last year, Marcus had BOTH legs amputated from just below his knees. His spirit has remained strong, although sad for the loss of his legs. With rehabilitation already commenced, Marcus has basically had to learn to walk again and his life will change immensely from here. 

I would like to help my brother find the resources to modify and customise his car so that he can drive once again. He will be mobile on prosthetic limbs soon, so he needs the ability to manoeuvre in and out of his car effectively to get back to his normal routine. He is such a generous, kind person and I would love to be able to do something for him in return.