Donate to Robert's Healing Journey

My name is Melissa Metzger, and I am raising funds to pay our accumulated medical expenses for my husband, Robert.

Robert has had to deal with so much, from being diagnosed with Legionnaire's disease in 2010 and the doctors calling in his family because they didn't think he would make it. He defeated that and then sadly was diagnosed with stage 4 throat cancer in 2020. He had to go through the most toxic form of Chemo and radiation and ended up defeating that as well and is currently in remission.

In 2024 at the end of January, Robert had a horrible fall at our home fracturing his skull and was taken by ambulance to the hospital as a stroke patient. They did a cat scan to then find out it wasn't a stroke, but that he had bleeding in his brain. The next day they did another cat scan and then he ended up having to be rushed into the OR to have an emergency Craniotomy because he was hemorrhaging. Robert suffered a MASSIVE TBI (traumatic brain injury). The swelling and bleeding was so bad that the entire left side of his brain had shifted. The next night after his craniotomy, he started to have seizures which is common with a traumatic brain injury. He had to be on numerous different medications between blood pressure meds, to seizure meds, to then antibiotics. Robert was on the ventilator for 17 days and then spiked a fever, only to find out he then developed an infection in his lungs (pneumonia) from the tube so then he had to have another surgery to replace the tube with a temporary trach. After the trach was placed, they slowly started to wean him off the sedation. It took him days to open his eyes. We were told by doctors they didn't know if he would be able to speak or even remember us. Well he once again proved everyone wrong, and was slowly starting to respond and talk. Robert was in the TICU for 23 days before they transferred him to a regular ICU floor to which he was then there for another week. After being in the hospital for a month, they transferred him to an inpatient rehab for another month to which he would have to deal with extensive therapy.

Robert was able to do an in-home visit with the therapy team to make sure it was suitable for him to come home. He was doing outpatient therapy but then his insurance stopped covering it. He is currently doing at-home "therapy" with me trying to keep improving his health. He is also doing eye therapy because due to the fall he isn't able to see very good and can't see out of the left side. They just increased his sessions again.

Robert has a VERY long road ahead of him and will need continuous care. His medical bills just keep coming in and piling up so I'm asking for donations to help with them.