Please Help Me Stay Home To Care For My Husband

My name is Karen Muratov and I’m creating this Go Fund Me for my family. My husband Igor Muratov had a liver transplant in 2014. After the 1st week he started having complications. He stayed in OSU for about 3 months then was transferred to Cleveland Clinic for another 3-4 months. He almost passed away twice and had to have emergency surgery on his bowels. They did a resection on his small bowels. He’s had many stents put into his hepatic & portal veins because toxins were backing up into his liver. The artery leaving the liver wasn’t wide enough when the transplant was done. This also caused severe ascites to where he was bed bound for a month. When we moved him to the bedside commode the fluid sprayed out of his staples & stitches onto the floor. It was so bad I had to out a few towels underneath him. He had to learn to walk again, had a feeding tube for a month, bowel leakage, c-diff, artery in groin ballooned a few times, etc. When he finally came home, he was vomiting every morning and throughout the day & was 160 lbs. at 6’4”. Our daughters were afraid to hug or touch him because they thought they would break him. It took him almost 6 months to recover.

Finally, we thought we had caught a break. He gained his weight back, started hitting the gym, eating very healthy, was very active and loved being outdoors doing anything. Things stayed great for a few years & we had a normal life. A year ago, things started to creep up. He was losing weight, got weaker, was tired more and napping throughout the day. He started getting these severe cramps in his feet, legs, & hands. They were so bad his limbs would contort and twist. Me & my girls would try to massage them out or use the hair dryer for heat. Sometimes this helped & other times he was in agony for up to an hour. After a little while he slowly started to get water weight in his abdomen. Diuretics worked at first to help with water but stopped helping. His abdominal pain where his liver is located constantly ached and felt like cigarettes were being put out on it. We’ve going to many doctors that just didn’t seem to take our complaints serious. We bounced back & forth from OSU to Cleveland trying to get some help. He pretty much dealt with this for a few months.

This past 5-6 months the fluid in his legs have gotten much worse. We have to squeeze his feet & ankles to relieve the pain & pressure. His abdomen his extremely full and now its made it way to his private parts. His private parts are now the size of a mini watermelon. He cannot walk, sit up, sit down, use the bathroom, shower, dress himself without assistance. Two hospitals tried to do paracentesis, but they don’t get out much fluid. They said he has edema which is fluid that’s trapped in your bodies tissue. When you touch his skin its like memory foam. His skin is starting to stretch, rip, bleed & leech fluid because it has no place to go. We were recently told besides his enlarged liver, spleen & prostate he is in end stage renal failure. During the last 6 months we also tried get Igor on the transplant list again, but we have been turned down by 5 hospitals. They all say he is high risk with a 30% mortality rate. He is on Hospice in Home Care. We have a nurse that stops by 1-2 times a week & are available 24 hours which is great, but he needs constant care. We have a small business where we both used to work but now, I work by myself. I’m supposed to be on call 24 hours but I have to turn away customers so I can care for Igor at home. He is on oxygen because the fluid is pushing against his lungs is on strong pain meds every few hours. Our girls are in school all day & I cannot leave him home alone to work. We don’t know how much longer Igor can last in this condition and we’re spending as much time as we can together. We’re sharing memories, crying, laughing but mostly crying. I can’t bare the thought of my husband leaving us so early.

I’m asking anyone that can help with our living expenses while we are going through a difficult time. If you cannot donate that’s ok. Please share our page wherever you can because we need all the help we can get. My family thanks you immensely.