Update 9/10:
We are almost a month out from the day Angie originally went into the hospital. She continues to improve at home every day. She uses the machine at night and only during the day if needed. Although she is still on oxygen, she has started doing what she can to get her strength up including walking around the house, breathing exercises, and her voice has gotten much stronger. Angie also got to meet her 7th grandchild and hold him in her lap. This was the most precious thing to all of us!
With your generous donations Angie and her husband have been able to hire in-home help 3 days a week to allow Bill to go to work, as well as pay for needed medications and urgent medical bills. We are still working on getting Angie linked with her needed therapies (occupational, physical, and speech) as insurance decided not to cover them. This will be out of pocket and we are not sure yet on the total cost. Any and all donations and shares are welcome to help meet this need and continue to provide the in-home care Angie needs.
Angie wanted me to make sure to mention how thankful she is for all of the support and prayers! She is forever grateful and she and I ask that all of those who have donated, shared, prayed receive that blessing back 10 fold! Our God is so good and continues to give Angie strength every day to walk down the road of recovery. Thank you!
Hello! I’d like to tell you about my mom, Angie Bishop.
Angie is a vibrant and loving woman who dedicated her life to loving, supporting, and helping not only her family but anyone ever who needed a warm smile, a hug, a home, a shoulder to cry on, the list goes on. My family spent 5 years serving as missionaries in Costa Rica and the number of lives Angie touched and helped just in that time are countless. She has made an impact everywhere she has gone. There are so many all over the world who call her friend, sister, second mom, and servant of God.
3 years ago Angie woke up one morning with vertigo; vertigo that never went away and ended up becoming chronic for 5 months. She was unable to drive, had difficulty doing every day tasks such as walking and standing, and was forced into an early retirement at the age of 57. During this time she also started experiencing painful facial spasms and pain in her hands and arms. Her hands started to claw, and she began to lose strength and function slowly. After what seemed like an endless stream of doctor visits and medical tests, Angie was diagnosed with pernicious anemia and ulnar nerve compression in both arms. The nerves in her arms and hands continued to weaken, to the point where getting dressed, lifting a cup, cooking (something she always loved to do) and really any task that involved hand strength was impossible.
In June of 2022 Angie had surgery on her right ulnar nerve to try to correct the issues and 7 months later in February of 2023 she had the same surgery done on her left ulnar nerve. Months of physical therapy followed and although she was told her hands would never regain full strength and function she was making small baby steps in being able to regain some strength and mobility. At this point Angie had become dependent on others (mainly my dad, Bill) to do things like cook, clean, bathe her, wash and comb her hair, etc. Her daily activities consisted of at home physical therapy and trying to stay as active as she could.
In January of 2024 Angie got a very mild case of COVID-19 which came and went and we thought all was okay. In February of 2024 Angie started complaining of shortness of breath, and started to struggle when moving around. The already long list of doctors and doctor visits increased and she started seeing a pulmonologist and cardiologist as her breathing issues worsened. Angie was given inhalers, nebulizers, OTC meds and many other prescriptions to try. In May, they put a diagnosis down of COPD for insurance purposes although no one knew for certain and also diagnosed bronchiectasis which was causing a build up of mucus in her lungs. This led to a compression vest being prescribed as well as more meds. In June, Angie was placed on oxygen 24/7 as her blood oxygen levels weren’t good. In July, Angie went in for a heart catheter just to rule out any cardiac issues that could be contributing to the lack of ability to breath, and was admitted to the hospital without being able to complete the procedure due to concerns with her breathing when they tried to do the heart catheter. She was sent home two days later still on oxygen.
Since July her breathing has continued to worsen and the once very active and lively Angie we all knew and loved was spending her days in a chair or bed in her room. She stopped talking much, and her only activity was going to the bathroom. The last week of July and first week of August her energy levels plummeted, she was barely eating or drinking anything and becoming very weak. She couldn’t keep her head up and in all
honesty we thought we were watching her die. Come to find out we were; we just didn’t realize how bad it was.
The night of August 11, she fell trying to get out of bed and had been having more falls or times when her legs would just give out in general. Dad and I had spent the morning of 8/12 discussing putting cameras in the room so he could monitor her better while at work. I then received a phone call from my mom that same day telling me I needed to have my dad come home right away, and I too needed to get there right away because she could not breathe. When we arrived she stated she was fine and did not remember telling us to come home, telling us she couldn’t breathe, or why she called me to begin with. Her memory had been slipping but not to this degree and it alerted dad and I that something serious was going on. That day she was admitted to the ICU with hypoxia and has been in the hospital since.
Doctors determined that Angie was retaining too much CO2 in her tissues and her levels were dangerously high. A normal CO2 level is between 20-25, and anything over 40 is a serious cause for concern. The day she was admitted her CO2 level was in the high 90s and on the following day it got up to 139. Angie is using a Bipap machine to push oxygen in and pull CO2 out. Doctors suspect that she has been retaining CO2 for years (upon some googling it could have even been what caused the ulnar nerve and pernicious anemia issues that began so long ago) and it’s simply that none of the (sooooo many) doctors she has seen thought to check her CO2.
While in the hospital she has shown such great improvement; she has a little more strength, is eating more than she has in over a month, is going about 10 hours without the Bipap during the day and looking at possible discharge this week from the hospital. Just 5 days ago doctors said she could potentially be in the hospital for the rest of her life so this is excellent progress and we give all the glory to
God!
While we are out of the woods as far as immediate medical emergency, Angie still has a very long road of recovery ahead of her. COPD is something she will have for the rest of her life. She will have to use a Bipap machine at home as well as some other equipment like the oxygen. A hospital-like bed will need to be utilized as well as in home nursing, physical, speech and occupational therapy, and even more doctor visits.
This fund is meant to go towards the medical debt that has been accrued over the past 3 years as well as help pay for equipment and at home needs that insurance will not pay for. My parents pay out of pocket for the insurance they have and although we have started the process of SSDI for Angie, that could take up to two years to be approved and see any relief. In addition to medical costs our hope is to help with meals and house cleaning to take some things off of my dad’s shoulders as he will have to continue to work full time and care for my mom as he has been doing for so long, just now with more demands and complex medical equipment. In home nursing will be provided only a couple days a week for a short period so if it is needed longer/more frequently than that, those costs can also hopefully be offset a little.
After a life time of helping those in need, my hope is that my parents can now receive help themselves. I pray that God bless anyone that chooses to give to the most deserving people I know!