Donate to Gil Snyder's Healing Journey

First and foremost, thank you to all who have reached out, shown support, and have been sending prayers and healing vibes to the Gil Snyders. The past three weeks have been quite a journey, to put it mildly.

I (Katie) created this on behalf of my dad, Gil, as he navigates his healing and caring journey. He has quite the road to recovery after such a traumatic week and will require a lot of rehabilitation while also navigating a recent diagnosis of Alzheimer’s.

As many of you know, Gil has recently been navigating some significant health difficulties. In April, he was told that his diagnosis of stenosis had led to congestive heart failure and he was in need of a valve replacement.

On May 13, 2025, he had a pretty standard procedure in the medical world, the TAVR procedure, to replace the valve. Overall, the procedure went well but not without some complications. He developed a hematoma on the side of his leg, but nothing that couldn't be treated in the hospital. We know Gilby, and he sure does like to be independent. He was ready to be home, and he was done with the pain from the procedure.

Gil was back home by May 14th and in continued pain. With the support from family, he was recovering at home. He was chomping at the bit to get back out of the house to do all the things he was used to. Those stubborn Snyder genes came into play, and any restrictions were not holding him back! Though he started to show signs of bigger complications with some ongoing nausea, the pain from the hematoma, and some mild fluid retention. Doctors were not concerned with his healing and his post-op cleared him.

On Saturday, May 24th, he woke up with some pretty concerning symptoms of bigger things happening. He was nauseous, dizzy, had blood in his stool, and was vomiting what looked like digested blood. Sue and Gil headed to Froedtert Emergency Department to get things checked out. At this time, he was admitted due to the recent surgery and concerning symptoms. It was decided that he needed a colonoscopy and upper GI scope because his symptoms indicated a GI bleed. Because of this, he began to prep for his colonoscopy. This led to more blood loss and by 6:30 am on 5/25, Rapid Response was called due to his blood pressure tanking and continued vomiting of digested blood. He then aspirated on his vomit and was intubated and taken to ICU, as he continued to bleed. He was rushed into surgery in an attempt to find the bleed and stop it.

It turns out he had a sizable ulcer that burst and this led to all of his internal bleeding. The GI surgeons clipped his upper intestine in 5 different places, in hopes of stopping the bleeding. However, he continued to show signs of active bleeding and needed to be rushed back into surgery to stop the bleed in his lower GI. At this point, he has also had multiple blood transfusions due to all the blood loss.

We thought we were past the worst of it when his body started to show signs of sepsis/pneumonia. When he was vomiting, he aspirated on his vomit and this led to pneumonia. His body temp skyrocketed. While the ICU team worked to treat the pneumonia, his body was weakening with all that was going on. His blood pressure was low, requiring quite a few meds to help circulate his blood flow, and he required full sedation with high ventilator settings to help him breathe. His heart and lungs had been compromised. We took it hour by hour to hear all his updates and check his labs, with a rotating visitation schedule from his loved ones.

Gil is a fighter, and he continues to fight! As of today, he has made so much progress! The best news is that he has been extubated, which means the tubes going down his throat have been removed and he is not dependent on a machine to breathe/live. He has moved out of the ICU and into a different floor. After 3 surgeries and 6 blood transfusions total, his diagnosis thus far has included: septic shock, hemorrhagic shock, acute hypoxemic respiratory failure, and he requires high complexity decision making for assessment and support.

As you have read, there is quite the road to recovery ahead with significant and ongoing medical costs to aid in his rehabilitation and quality of life. Any bit helps pave the road ahead for success.