The Campbell Family Needs Help.

8 years ago , my husband Rich suffered a catastrophic medical event after an emergency surgery to remove his gallbladder. He nearly died, and came out with lifelong medical issues.

As we wait for SSDI, please help us in obtaining the medication Rich needs to continue recovering from PICS (Post-ICU Syndrome) and to get his life back.

This would be an opportunity for our family to regain some level of normalcy after a life-changing event. The medication consists of HGH (Human Growth Hormone) injections.

Rich’s current medication is Omnitrope; It is helping him immensely. He is taking it off label, as part of a non-profit study, and it is the least expensive of the HGH treatments out there. There are no assistance programs available, beyond the manufacturer’s program that we are currently on; if they do exist, we do not qualify for them. I have researched everything related to the topic, and have found information on all of the HGH injections that exist. Our insurance will not cover this treatment.

As the amount needed to help my husband increases in dose each month, the cost increases. We are now at $400/ month. With my salary as a teacher, this is not something we can afford to maintain, and we are now out of time and resources. We expect the final cost to be around $550/ month, and we also need to cover a few life expenses.

I spend most of my time outside of work, preparing lessons and other things that are necessary to help my students achieve success. That leaves no time for me to get a second job and still be a good teacher. Due to Rich’s limitations, I also need to do a lot more at home than I would if he were able to help.

If we stop getting the medication, Rich will go back to his previous condition; which involves being unable to do basic tasks, such as: counting money, doing physical work, spending time with our children, experiencing memories of life before these events occurred, or do any computer programming; which is not only a career and passion, but is also a beloved activity that my husband once enjoyed and was very talented at. Thank you very much for reading, sharing our story, and considering us.

Read on for more…..

I invite you to read the full description below, if you love to read long-winded-but-true stories, such as the ones I tend to write! - Danielle

As the eight year anniversary of an event that changed everything for my husband and family approaches; we are reminded of my husband’s, and subsequently our, plight. In 2017, it was this very weekend that my husband, Rich, happened to be about 15 hours away when he ended up in a hospital with severe stomach pain. “Are you kidding me? I’m not even playing with you and your twisted April Fool’s Jokes,” I shouted into the phone at my poor husband. “Danielle, this is not a joke. I am going to the hospital!”

OK, so his gallbladder had decided it was done working. Not a joke. The nurse sounded confident enough that Rich would not only be just fine, but that he would also be able to get on a plane in 2-3 days and come home after the small, laparoscopic procedure they were about to perform.

However; the next day, something was wrong. Rich was not getting out of bed; not walking around. He was in too much pain, even considering he had just undergone emergency surgery. Still, I was assured by the hospital staff that he would be fine. On the following day, my husband was unable to get out of bed. He was sweating; abdomen distended, and listless, at best. Ultimately, it was decided that they would open him back up that evening to find out what was going on.

I said, “Forget this.” And just like that, I was flying to Philadelphia. My husband was dying. The events that followed included Rich enduring something no one should ever have to experience. As my beloved husband’s body went into Septic Shock, he was now; by all intents and purposes, a soldier in the horrific fight for his life. The battlefield would become the very hospital in which he had both arrived on; and was brought back from, death’s door.

The war included a total of four surgeries, medications that would pump the blood out of his extremities and up to his heart to make it pump. “He’s on the pressors,” they told me. I looked up at his IV at the vasopressors. Adrenaline. Epinephrine. Maybe something else. Then there was Dilaudid, for the pain, because even morphine didn’t touch it. Antibiotics, and more, that I cannot recall. And finally, there were two more medications; Propofol and Fentanyl, that would keep him sedated so he would not really know what was going on while he was on the ventilator.

Little did they know; a redhead always knows what’s going on. My husband is a redhead, for sure. Something not many people know is that it has been scientifically proven that redheads have a somewhat low tolerance for pain and a very high tolerance, as well as a high occurrence of side effects, for medications and sedatives. Mind you, my husband has never done a drug in his life; yet, he was writhing in pain.

Even I didn’t know; at the time, that this was the case for him. My husband was suffering while I thought he was oblivious. In fact, I would later find out that it was not just unpleasant for him; it was torture. It was actual torture that lasted for years. In our reality (myself and our family), it was 18 days. In his experience, which felt very real, it was many horrifying years.

He was riddled with terrifying nightmares; hallucinations, that would become his reality and manifest in the trauma that he still suffers from. This is the true picture of full-on PTSD. Rich still cannot talk about any of it, other than the few details he has been able to give me over the years, which I have used to write this recollection of events.

Since these events have occurred, Rich has never been the same, and neither have any of us. We have come to the realization that things will never be the way they once were. All of us in our family; instead, have been trying to create a new way of being. And that will take time, as we continue to process our own traumas related to these life-altering events; Rich’s being the most profound, in therapy.

Some people are basketball families; some are scouting, outdoorsy, or other sports-loving families. We are a therapy family. As a teacher, I make a modest living for our family; and that is putting it nicely. Although we rely heavily on our church’s food bank; as we often have just enough to cover our rent and some of our monthly expenses, I have always been grateful that we have my health insurance, which covers most of our medical expenses, therapy, and generic prescription medications.

However, the one medication that has really helped Rich in the past few months; we can no longer afford. In the fall of 2024, Rich found a doctor in Texas who was studying the effects of human growth hormone therapy on ICU survivors who have suffered from a condition Rich has, called Post-ICU Syndrome. The condition is not understood by many people; however, one can liken it as something similar to what is known as “Long Covid.”

Although Rich does not have Long Covid, his symptoms are similar. His ICU stay has caused him severe fatigue, chronic pain, weakness, a chronic state of coldness in temperature, no matter what the weather is (this is a result of the vasopressors he was on), and he has continued to need double socks; even in the summer. My husband now has trouble climbing stairs, he sometimes enjoys going for walks; however, one walk will often leave him wiped out for days.

So yes, there’s all of that. However; there is nothing quite as insulting to my husband, or as heartbreaking for me and our children to watch him go through, as the resulting brain injury that has cost Rich his career as a computer programmer. This was not only a career that my husband had worked so hard for; it was his very passion in life. My husband, a gifted computer programmer, has always lived to support his family.

The fact that Rich can no longer support us does not bother me in the least. I support our family with joy and gratitude that my husband is alive, and that we are together with our three beautiful children. We marry in sickness and in health, and I couldn’t be happier or more thankful that Rich was given a second chance at life.

Even still, I can see that every day, when he sees me working to support our family, it absolutely kills him. Rich has always lived to be a provider. He wants to be able to take care of us. Although he has tried so many times to apply for disability, he has been denied each time. Denied; even with a lawyer. Denied; even with multiple doctors’ statements, certifications, diagnoses, and letters. “Sorry, you’re not disabled enough,” is what comes back each time. Yes, it presents itself in different words. However; that is, no doubt, what it means.

Since that dark time, Rich has joined an ICU Survivors’ Support Group, and each of us have been through extensive therapy that will continue for as long as we need it to. About 6 months ago, before he began growth hormone injections, (for which I get to be the not-so-lucky person doing his daily injections - I say that not because I want to complain, but because I don’t like being the one to hurt him with my lack of nurse-like training), Rich could barely even get out of bed. He could not stay awake past 3 or 4 pm. And he definitely couldn’t do any of the things he used to be able to do. And most of his memories were either gone or very distant, because of the brain injury.

About a month after Rich began the injections, we began seeing small changes. Rich now sometimes had energy. He began to acquire the ability to do things at home. After two months, Rich was picking the kids up from school or aftercare and taking them to appointments so that I had to miss less work. After three months, his memories began to return. Things like our wedding, our lives as a young family with our children as babies; our first dog, Heart; our lives starting out back in New Jersey, began to return.

Needless to say, there’s no question we are beyond thankful for Rich getting a second shot at life. We are asking for your support now, so that he may be able to continue this journey, possibly get some of his brain power back, and have a small but mighty glimmer of hope. Thank you again for reading my recollection of events, as they relate to my husband’s ICU Stay. We thank everyone who has donated and shared so far. Please continue to share our post. Thank you very much.

-Danielle Campbell