Dave Wilthew’s fight against Crohn’s Disease

Hello I’m Kathy Rosenberger, Dave’s mother-in-law, I’m fundraising for Dave’s fight against Crohn’s Disease.

He’s been battling Crohn’s disease for the last 17 years and lives with an ileostomy bag. He’s had is rectum and colon removed and his bag moved for replacement 3 times. He went

through months of Remicade treatments that didn’t seem to help his condition. Six years ago he was life-flighted to the Cleveland clinic, because his intestine twisted, cutting off circulation to his stoma and he had emergency surgery.

The last few times he was rushed to the hospital he had uncontrollable bleeding in his ostomy bag. They had a hard time trying to figure out where the bleeding was coming from and he lives with that fear everyday.

Currently, he’s been in the Cleveland Clinic for the last 14 days. It started with an inability to walk so we took him to the Clinic. They found a nasty infection found between his bladder and pubic symphysis bone. It was a like a roller coaster, for the first three days. He was seen by the attending doctor, urologists, infectious disease, orthopedic and a G.I..teams. They identified the infection as a fistula caused by Crohn’s disease. He had a superficial pubic catheter put in his bladder to help relieve some pressure on the urethra. He also had a bone marrow biopsy done to see if the infection is in his bone. The scan of his stomach also showed double hernia in his intestines, which is dangerous for his stoma. And unfortunately, with all of this going on, they found out that he has gout because his ankle has been swelling up.

We are hoping that he will be home this weekend after he receives another procedure to have a bigger tube put in the catheter. He will come home with a picc line for his IV antibiotics. He will have mounting medical bills with hospital stay, home care nursing, medication and gas for travel back and forth to the Cleveland clinic.

His wife, Melissa will have to be trained on how to change the IV bag to his picc line. And empty the urine from his catheter.

Dave we will be going back to the Cleveland clinic for the surgical team to remove the fistula.

As all of this isn’t enough he has Afib and was scheduled to have a watchman surgically implemented to prevent clotting, which could cause a stroke.

If you know Dave, you know that he is caring, compassionate and selfless. He loves to talk to people and he’ll be the first person to stand up and help someone when they are in need.

We would appreciate any donation amount from Dave’s Warriors to help pay for the mounting financial expenses he is facing now and in the up coming months. Dave and his family truly appreciate all the prayers and support that he has gotten so far and would hope that your thoughts and prayers will continue.