Pete’s Brain Injury

Hi, my name is Jennifer. They say your life can change in a heartbeat. They’re not kidding. This year has been quite hard. My boyfriend of 24 years, Peter, had a heart attack while driving my car. He crossed over four lanes of a highway up an embankment hit a telephone pole which snapped in half. By the grace of God, there were firemen coming the opposite direction and I’m told they got to him within 3 to 4 minutes. He was DOA. They shocked him twice gave CPR and revived him. In the process they broke all of his ribs, his sternum causing a rib to puncture a lung. But I was told at the hospital if you’re not breaking bones you’re not doing it right. He was in the hospital for two months. He encountered a slew of problems, including a triple bypass surgery, which was supposed to be a quadruple bypass surgery but they could not perform that because his veins were not long enough in his legs, they were not usable in his arms, so they took one from each side of his chest. While in the hospital, he developed pneumonia, a stomach infection, and an abscess which required another surgery. For the rest of his life, he will suffer with this severe traumatic brain injury. It is not from hitting his head, but it’s from the lack of oxygen, which I’m told is on the molecular level meaning he will never be the same again. His lack of memory and lack of his cognitive behavior or skills will stop him from ever being able to function properly, drive or work again. In turn it’s causing me to have to stay home and take care of him as much as possible, losing over 3/4 of my pay at work. My mother lives with us as well and I take care of her too, she has breast cancer and multiple myeloma. I have to take care of both of them now and try to work as much ad I can when I can get help which is not very often. I have never asked for any kind of help before. I’ve always just tried to figure it out. This happened on August 10, 2022 and I have been trying and trying to figure this out somehow, make it work out but we are at rock-bottom now. I don’t know what else to do. We have accumulated over $1 million in medical bills and all of our money has been depleted paying our monthly bills. With very very little income coming in I’m facing losing everything we have. I know this was quite long and thank you for reading our story. There’s a lot more, but this is the gist of it. Thank you again God bless your heart.