Tim Machuga funeral expenses

2 months ago Tim was a completely normal functioning human being. Over the last 8 weeks we have watched him decline in health seemingly out of nowhere. It started with small confusion and dementia like symptoms followed. Soon after, his motor skills were affected followed by impaired vision and other serious problems cognitively and physically. His parents took him multiple times to Corning and Arnot ER begging for them to help him. After weeks of no answers and wrong direction from medical professionals we asked for a neurologist referral. On 5/12 we got that referral and were struck with more bad news, neurology was so booked out he couldn’t be seen until December. We could not wait that long. He was rapidly declining and we had no answers. We had no choice but to put him in a vehicle and drive him to Rochester at strong memorial ER and beg for a neurologist consult. At the time of putting him into the car that Thursday he had to use a walker to even get to the truck and did not really know what was happening to him. His family has been stricken with grief and stress from watching this happen for weeks and feeling like we could not help him.

After a few days of testing and neurologists consulting with other doctors at strong memorial he was diagnosed with CJD (Creutzfeld-Jakob disease) otherwise known as “mad cow disease”. This is a human prion disease, it is a neurodegenerative disorder with characteristic clinical and diagnostic features. This disease is rapidly progressive and always fatal. Infections with this disease leads to death, usually within 1 year of onset of illness.

Unfortunately, In Tim’s case he was not given 1 year and in the week following his diagnosis he rapidly declined even further, his body started into paralysis and he no longer could speak or communicate with his loved ones. He was put into palliative care. He slipped into a comatose state and his family was called to Rochester to say goodbye on 5/22. Tim has three beautiful children, and he is a loving son, brother, uncle and cousin. Tim has a larger than life personality and has made such a difference in everyone’s lives. We love him and will miss him so much.

Unfortunately Tim has no life insurance and his parents will be handling all medical and funeral expenses that they had not planned on happening in their lifetime. We are organizing this go fund me to assist with those expenses and appreciate any and all help that you are willing to give.

From the entire Machuga family, thank you for taking the time to read this and please feel free to share this go fund me in hopes we will be able to give Tim the beautiful celebration of life he deserves.