I'm Jen and I'm raising funds for a good friend, Shelley Decker, who just happens to also be my supervisor and a pretty neat human being to boot. Shelley has faced a catastrophic and financially devastating series of health issues over the past eleven weeks that have left her out of work for extended periods of time.

On June 17th Shelley suffered a terrifying and spontaneous lung bleed that required intubation and landed her in CCU for 4 days. If you know Shelley, you know she was right back to work as soon as she could get medically cleared, complete with an oxygen tank and her famous phase "it's fine, it's all fine."

Two weeks later, Shelley was on her way home from work when she hit a deer at 65 MPH, deploying all air bags and totaling her car. Another hospital visit, more lost time from work. I know her biggest concern was whether or not the high impact would resume the bleed or start a new one yet there she was, battered and bruised but right back at work as soon as medically allowed with her signature phrase "it's fine, I'm fine, it's all fine."

It didn't stop there though.

Two weeks after that, Shelley suffered a very serious GI bleed that required multiple blood transfusions and an extended hospital stay. She was very weak and required several weeks out of work before she could get medical clearance to return. Shelley had JUST returned to work for THREE DAYS when she suffered yet another lung hemorrhage that required intubation and landed her back in CCU for another six days and more time out of work.

Shelley had just been cleared to return to work and was back for one week when she suffered a third lung bleed, another six day CCU stay with intubation and more time out of work.

It hasn't stopped. It still keeps coming.

Shelley was just discharged yesterday, September 13th, after two more days in CCU for observation of yet another spontaneous bleed. She never even had a chance to return to work from her last event.

There are more questions than answers and if she wasn't worried so much about how she was going to pay bills maybe we could encourage her to find them but right now I know she's just trying to figure out how she's going to pay her living expenses. Does she have earned time? Sure, but it's long gone. Does she have short term disability? Yes, but only the very first episode to date fits the time constraints of the policy to be considered a covered event and STILL has yet to be paid.

I'd like to help relieve some of the financial pressures that she's most certainly feeling but powerless to fix right now. I’ve never done anything like this and it took some convincing on Shelley’s part to let me, but no one can weather this kind of storm alone. I hope you’ll consider helping if you can.