FUNDRAISER FOR DEB PICARD
Donation protected
On January 2, 2016, our mom, Deb Picard, was once again finding herself fighting for her life. A day which was supposed to be her granddaughter, Maddie’s 8th birthday celebration, turned into a complete whirlwind around 1pm in the afternoon. After receiving a call from our dad stating that mom was in too much pain to attend the party, things went south very fast.
By 3pm, he had to call an ambulance because our mom was in immense pain and vomiting uncontrollably. It was unbearable. From there, she was rushed into surgery because they found fluid and air leaking from her colon and they needed to find out why. When they went in, they found two holes in her colon. One had developed a fatty mass around it, incasing it. The other was completely open allowing toxins and other septic matter into the rest of her body.
Because there was so much damage, the surgeon cut her colon from one hole to the other removing it. He was able to put in drains in order to help get all of the toxic matter out. She now has a colostomy bag, because of all the damage that was caused. She was admitted to the SICU unit at Regional Hospital to start her recovery. That recovery was plagued by set back after set back. After fighting for her life in a medical-induced coma for 5 days, her body told us that it just couldn’t handle it anymore. On Monday January 11, 2016, our mom went into cardiac arrest. It took about 2-3 minutes for the hospital staff to revive her. Just as we thought things were starting to get better, they continually got worse. Her heart and her body have already been through so much. From there, clots developed and she also contracted pneumonia from her inability to move and from being on a breathing ventilator. An EEG was done and found that she had had suffered 3 mini strokes.
After all of the steps forward and backward, we are happy to say that our mom is still with us fighting! The doctors still can not believe that she survived as they told us most people do not survive everything that she has been through. Although she is still fighting, she has a long road to recovery. She will need extensive therapy, to include learning how to use her arms, how to walk and how to speak again. She will have to relearn all of the basics that you and I find so easy from day to day. They are going to move her to a specialty long term acute care hospital, located in Denver, as there are none located in Rapid City. She will need long term and monitored rehabilitation. Once again all we care about is our mom and getting her healthy and back home. Her husband, George aka Jorge, has been with her every step of the way. He has been at the hospital with her will be going to Denver as well to help and support her. We are unsure how long they will be down there but we are anticipating at least 8 weeks or longer.
Due to all of these events once again, we are doing all we can to take care of medical bills, household bills, etc. But with everything comes expenses.
We wanted to take the time to update everyone on the course of events over the last month, as we have had our world once again turned upside down.
Please feel free to help our family through this very difficult time with donations, thoughts and prayers. We are just trying to do everything possible for our loving parents. Anything at all is blessing
Thank you
Ashley Wentz
Morgan Stafford
By 3pm, he had to call an ambulance because our mom was in immense pain and vomiting uncontrollably. It was unbearable. From there, she was rushed into surgery because they found fluid and air leaking from her colon and they needed to find out why. When they went in, they found two holes in her colon. One had developed a fatty mass around it, incasing it. The other was completely open allowing toxins and other septic matter into the rest of her body.
Because there was so much damage, the surgeon cut her colon from one hole to the other removing it. He was able to put in drains in order to help get all of the toxic matter out. She now has a colostomy bag, because of all the damage that was caused. She was admitted to the SICU unit at Regional Hospital to start her recovery. That recovery was plagued by set back after set back. After fighting for her life in a medical-induced coma for 5 days, her body told us that it just couldn’t handle it anymore. On Monday January 11, 2016, our mom went into cardiac arrest. It took about 2-3 minutes for the hospital staff to revive her. Just as we thought things were starting to get better, they continually got worse. Her heart and her body have already been through so much. From there, clots developed and she also contracted pneumonia from her inability to move and from being on a breathing ventilator. An EEG was done and found that she had had suffered 3 mini strokes.
After all of the steps forward and backward, we are happy to say that our mom is still with us fighting! The doctors still can not believe that she survived as they told us most people do not survive everything that she has been through. Although she is still fighting, she has a long road to recovery. She will need extensive therapy, to include learning how to use her arms, how to walk and how to speak again. She will have to relearn all of the basics that you and I find so easy from day to day. They are going to move her to a specialty long term acute care hospital, located in Denver, as there are none located in Rapid City. She will need long term and monitored rehabilitation. Once again all we care about is our mom and getting her healthy and back home. Her husband, George aka Jorge, has been with her every step of the way. He has been at the hospital with her will be going to Denver as well to help and support her. We are unsure how long they will be down there but we are anticipating at least 8 weeks or longer.
Due to all of these events once again, we are doing all we can to take care of medical bills, household bills, etc. But with everything comes expenses.
We wanted to take the time to update everyone on the course of events over the last month, as we have had our world once again turned upside down.
Please feel free to help our family through this very difficult time with donations, thoughts and prayers. We are just trying to do everything possible for our loving parents. Anything at all is blessing
Thank you
Ashley Wentz
Morgan Stafford
Organizer
Morgan Stafford
Organizer
Rapid City, SD