Donate to ease the burden of Josh’s open heart surgery.

Back in 2006 I was diagnosed with congestive heart failure and was put on the transplant list. Over the next three years, with help of some strong medications, the doctors were able to get my heart strong enough to come off the medicine and get back to a pretty normal life-style. I met my first wife, Abby, in 2011 and got married in 2013. We had seven wonderful years together before God called her home. I slipped into a deep depression after she passed and ended up with a really bad case of Covid that landed me in the hospital over Thanksgiving in 2021. But God wasn’t done with me yet and while my parents were told to come and say goodbye to me in the hospital, I woke up from my coma and God had given me another chance to live.

After I got out of the hospital, I needed someone to talk to and got back in touch with someone Abby had become friends with online. She understood the pain I was feeling having lost my wife as she had also lost Abby as a friend. We started talking every day and I wanted to visit Hershey, PA so I made plans to travel up to Delaware and meet Katie in person. She took me to see Hershey for the Christmas season. She also had a few surprises up her sleeve. We went on a Christmas steam engine ride and we got to go to Longwood Gardens and look at all the beautiful decorations, plants, flowers and lights. I also got to meet her parents and the rest of her family. I already knew that Katie was special to me and I wanted to see where this might lead. Spending time with her felt amazing and when I had to leave something in my heart felt sad.

I didn’t want to go back to a life where I felt so much pain but when I got back home, we talked everyday…even late into the night. I realized that God was opening my heart to love once again and before I could take that next step I needed to talk to my family and Abby’s family and have their blessing before I could pursue this. I spent the next couple of weeks with my family celebrating Christmas and I told them how I felt about the girl from Delaware. To my relief, they all agreed that she had given me my smile back and that I could move on to experience love once again. So with their blessing, I officially asked Katie to be my girlfriend on January 2nd, 2023.

The very next day, I ended up in the hospital with complications to my heart. That was the day Katie told me she loved me and would stand by my side no matter what came next. I thought it was going to be hard to tell her that I loved her too, but it came so easy. I told her that this life was going to be hard and I wanted to make sure this was something she really wanted. Katie came down to meet my family for her birthday week in March. I took her to Cade’s Cove and Pigeon Forge to see the mountains and some beautiful waterfalls. We stopped on the side of the road to walk down and take pictures of the running water. I got down on one knee and asked her to marry me…to be my wife. She cried and said yes and we spent the rest of the trip dreaming of our future together and talking about me moving up north.

A few months went by and my heart was struggling more and more. Katie came down in May to be with me for a procedure to put a mitral valve clip on my heart. The surgery went well and seemed to help my heart once again. So we started making plans for me to move to Delaware and get married in November. I moved in with mom and dad to save money and went up to visit Katie and we purchased a condo at the end of June and I moved up one month later.

I lived at the condo while the wedding plans came together. Mom and dad came up and stayed with me before the wedding. It was small but beautiful and we weren’t able to have a honeymoon or reception but we decided that we could do something later down the road.

I started working in October before we got married but slowly my heart was getting weaker and I had to quit my job in April 2024. Slowly but steadily my heart was beginning to fade. I just didn’t have the energy I used to and had to visit my doctors a lot more than usual. We scheduled a right heart cath toward the end of October where I was put back on IV medication and I ended up having to stay in the hospital for three weeks. When I got home, I had some complications and went back to the hospital for almost a week. I was afraid I would be stuck in the hospital for our first anniversary, but God was merciful and I was able to come home and celebrate Thanksgiving and our first anniversary together. I continued to feel weak and had to have another right heart cath scheduled for New Year’s Eve. After that test, I was sent to Penn Medicine up in Philadelphia to be considered for a heart transplant. After two weeks of intervention and testing I am being transferred over to Thomas Jefferson University Hospital in Philadelphia to pursue either the LVad or a Heart/Kidney transplant.

With Katie being the only one working, we are trying to carefully navigate this time as I will be having open heart surgery and will require a lot of care and recovery. My parents will be temporarily moving up to stay with us and help out so Katie can keep working. We know that God will provide for us and we are placing all our hope and trust in Him.

I just want to ask for your prayers that the surgery will go well and if you find it in your heart to donate, any amount is most appreciated and will truly help to ease the financial burden before us.