Chris Domack's Medical Fund

    My name is Eva Khoury and I'm going to tell you about my brother Chris Domack. He is 38 years old and is a father to two beautiful kids and is happily married to Charidy Domack.  He has been fighting obesity for many years.  This year he decided to end the fight with the help of surgery.  In September he chose to have the gastric sleeve done after lots of research.  The gastric sleeve is a surgery done laproscopically to remove 3/4 of the stomach and leaves it the size and shape of a banana (also called the banana sleeve).  This was supposed to have him off of work for only two weeks .  He had it done by a surgeon who has not been doing the operation for very long at all...6 months to be exact.  He came out of surgery great and started his recovery process.  In a week and a half he started to experience extreme burning in his stomach and was throwing up.  He was hospitalized and treated for dehydration and given IV medications to control the pain and acid production.  These things helped while in the hospital.  They discharged him on a Friday evening and sent him home with prescriptions to fill.  They were all in liquid form since he was unable to keep any food down.  Since he is from a small rural town, he could not get the meds that he needed.  He worsened over the weekend and was readmitted again.  It took them a few days to get him feeling better so he was able to get fluids down again.  The discharged him.  He was then readmitted for the second time only days later with a new diagnosis...Pancreatitis, which is an inflamation of his pancreas.  This was most likely due to the complications after the surgery.  He was given a PICC Line.  He was then discharged on a Friday afternoon to go home with prescriptions and an order for IV infusions to stay hydrated and at home partial nutrition bags for nourishment.  He was being treated as if he was seeking drugs and was being "weak".  My brother is one of the strongest persons I know.  He carries furnaces up flights of stairs on his back, while being morbidly obese.  The surgeon treating him was telling him that he needed time to heal and would have to eat and drink smaller amounts then what he was used to...He said, that he hadn't had another patient like him that needed as much "hand holding"!!!!!  This is the way he was treated there.   He felt completly helpless.  You can see how the story is going.  After some pushing the surgeon ordered a barium swallow to be done.  This FINALLY showed that he had a stricture in the middle of his stomach that was allowing fluid through a hairlike opening.



      Fortunately for Chris, he has a job where his employer is extremly empathetic and is encouring him to be 100% before he comes back to work.  
     After a second opinion with a University Surgeon, he was told he is extremely malnourished and needed a feeding tube for 2 weeks to get healthy enough to have a PEG tube placed into his stomach for more permanant feeding for about 6 months to get the gastric bypass surgery to fix it.  At this point he had lost about 90 pounds.  Although he needed to loose the weight, this is almost total starvation for 9 weeks.
       SInce then, he has had 2 dilations of the stricture which have failed. Now 13 weeks later and a total weightloss of 120 pounds.

He was recently admitted to a different hospital and now the new findings showed decreased blood supply to his stomach which is the cause of all his symptoms.  Unfortunately now, he must get stronger which he will do with IV nutrition through his PICC line until he sees a gastric bypass surgeon because that is the only fix.  Chris did not want this surgery to begin with because malnutrion later in life is very common. Although he needed to lose the weight, this has been an excruciating way to do it.
 
 This is the most recent picture where he finally got some color back in him from his nutrition hanging in the IV in the background.  Now that he has a team of doctors looking out for his best interest, we pray that he can finally be on the road to recovery.     During this ordeal, Chris has been unable to work and is getting a portion of his pay as disability.  This is hardly providing for his family.  With a new year and new deductibles coming, we are hoping to raise money to help get Chris and  his family back on their feet.  
He is very proud and will be immensely greatful and so will the whole family.  We are hoping that this will ease his financial burden so he can concentrate on healing.  He still has a long road ahead of him.