Medical expenses for my mom
Donation protected
Before I begin to tell you my mom's story, I'd like to thank you for caring enough to open this link. Whether or not you donate does not change the fact that you have heard my mom's story, and for that I appreciate you more than you know. Perhaps everyone who reads on will add my mom and family to their prayers each day. For it is prayer and Divine power along with wonderful nurses, doctors, and support staff that can be credited for my mom's miraculous recoveries again and again. However, all the prayers and medicine in the world could not help her if she herself did not have faith. My mom is a fighter. She has been knocked down countless times but she continues to get up. I honestly do not know how she does it. It is her strength that keeps me going each day. Ok, so here is a summary of the past two years of my mom's life. I will try to keep it as brief as possible, but it has been a very very long two years.
My mom has suffered from severe Chron's Disease since her early twenties, resulting in 6 bowel resections. Many of you may be familiar with this disease. It is a terrible disease. Back in October of 2012, a day before Hurricane Sandy, my mom was rushed to the hospital where it was determined that she needed emergency surgery immediately to save her life. The surgeon feared that her intestines were going to tear inside of her. After a 7 hour surgery the surgeon reported that she would have to fight to survive. Well, she's been fighting since then. That surgery left her with a fistula in the center of her belly and an enormous open wound. For an entire year, the surgeon told us that the fistula would hopefully close eventually and if not, she just had to live like that. (I will not include my opinion of this surgeon) Due to her situation she was put on TPN which is a "feeding" that goes through your veins and not your digestive tract. Unfortunately long term TPN can have negative side effects on your liver and you have a high risk of infection since you have a Hickman line. My mom spent most of that next year in different hospitals in NJ recovering from abscesses in her stomach and sepsis time and time again. Finally, we were informed about intestinal transplants and fought the insurance company to get to Mt.Sinai Hospital in NYC. While there she went through 2 major surgeries just to prepare her for a transplant. However, during the final evaluation to get her on the transplant list, they discovered that my mom has breast cancer. This makes her ineligible for the life saving transplant for at least the next 5 years. She has to be cancer free for 5 years to become eligible. Her plan of course is to get the cancer taken care of and fight like hell for the next 5 years.
At this point my mom has suffered from sepsis 10 or more times and has been on the ventilator I think 8 or more times (It's hard to keep track). She has been on the vent for as short as 5 days adn as long as 21 days. I cannot remember how many times I thought I would never be able to speak to my mom again. She has suffered from ARDS (Acute Respiratory Disease) 5 or 6 times. Most people don't survive ARDS even once! All of these insults have left her unable to walk or breath without continuous oxygen assistance. She works so hard everyday to try to gain some of her independence back, but this is quite difficult because she only gets 2 or 3 weeks at home before she is hit with another infection and the cycle of tests, scans, antibiotics, paralytics, ventilator, pressors, etc continues.
I have been endlessly trying to get her support at home but it is taking a long time and the services she has begun to recieve are very limited. With recent changes with insurance companies, they are cutting back big time with the number of hours people can receive for homecare. My family is doing their best to take turns in taking off of work to be their for my mom, but it is getting very tough. We are looking to hire someone to help take care of her. We are also hoping to get her an electric wheelchair as it will be a long time before she will be able to regain enough strength to walk on her own. And even when she is stronger, she may still not be able to walk around because her lungs are severly scarred from the ARDS and her oxygen level drops tremendously when she is active. I really could go on and on, but the bottom line is this....our hearts are all broken for my mom and we wish we could take away all of her pain. Since we can't, I am trying to do everything in my power to make her life better and adapt to life as it is right now. We have a long five years ahead of us. I know we can make it as long as we stay focused and don't let go of faith and hope. The picture of my mom was taken just about 5 years ago. I just want to see her happy again.
Thank you again for reading this.
My mom has suffered from severe Chron's Disease since her early twenties, resulting in 6 bowel resections. Many of you may be familiar with this disease. It is a terrible disease. Back in October of 2012, a day before Hurricane Sandy, my mom was rushed to the hospital where it was determined that she needed emergency surgery immediately to save her life. The surgeon feared that her intestines were going to tear inside of her. After a 7 hour surgery the surgeon reported that she would have to fight to survive. Well, she's been fighting since then. That surgery left her with a fistula in the center of her belly and an enormous open wound. For an entire year, the surgeon told us that the fistula would hopefully close eventually and if not, she just had to live like that. (I will not include my opinion of this surgeon) Due to her situation she was put on TPN which is a "feeding" that goes through your veins and not your digestive tract. Unfortunately long term TPN can have negative side effects on your liver and you have a high risk of infection since you have a Hickman line. My mom spent most of that next year in different hospitals in NJ recovering from abscesses in her stomach and sepsis time and time again. Finally, we were informed about intestinal transplants and fought the insurance company to get to Mt.Sinai Hospital in NYC. While there she went through 2 major surgeries just to prepare her for a transplant. However, during the final evaluation to get her on the transplant list, they discovered that my mom has breast cancer. This makes her ineligible for the life saving transplant for at least the next 5 years. She has to be cancer free for 5 years to become eligible. Her plan of course is to get the cancer taken care of and fight like hell for the next 5 years.
At this point my mom has suffered from sepsis 10 or more times and has been on the ventilator I think 8 or more times (It's hard to keep track). She has been on the vent for as short as 5 days adn as long as 21 days. I cannot remember how many times I thought I would never be able to speak to my mom again. She has suffered from ARDS (Acute Respiratory Disease) 5 or 6 times. Most people don't survive ARDS even once! All of these insults have left her unable to walk or breath without continuous oxygen assistance. She works so hard everyday to try to gain some of her independence back, but this is quite difficult because she only gets 2 or 3 weeks at home before she is hit with another infection and the cycle of tests, scans, antibiotics, paralytics, ventilator, pressors, etc continues.
I have been endlessly trying to get her support at home but it is taking a long time and the services she has begun to recieve are very limited. With recent changes with insurance companies, they are cutting back big time with the number of hours people can receive for homecare. My family is doing their best to take turns in taking off of work to be their for my mom, but it is getting very tough. We are looking to hire someone to help take care of her. We are also hoping to get her an electric wheelchair as it will be a long time before she will be able to regain enough strength to walk on her own. And even when she is stronger, she may still not be able to walk around because her lungs are severly scarred from the ARDS and her oxygen level drops tremendously when she is active. I really could go on and on, but the bottom line is this....our hearts are all broken for my mom and we wish we could take away all of her pain. Since we can't, I am trying to do everything in my power to make her life better and adapt to life as it is right now. We have a long five years ahead of us. I know we can make it as long as we stay focused and don't let go of faith and hope. The picture of my mom was taken just about 5 years ago. I just want to see her happy again.
Thank you again for reading this.
Organizer
Kearstin Meyer
Organizer
Plainsboro, NJ
