Get our Greg back!
Donation protected
On May 3rd, my stepson, Greg Russell, suffered a major stoke and is paralyzed on his dominant right side. He also has trouble speaking. This isn’t supposed to happen to a healthy young man, but it did.
Greg turned 40 on March 17th. He has a wife and two young children, ages 1.5 and 4 yrs old. They need him desperately. Greg will probably never return to his CPA career, and Nina will continue to work full-time to provide for the family. Greg will require full time 24 hour care and probably years of physical, occupational, and speech therapy to recover and come back to us. We are all praying that he will come back.
It’s hard to believe but up until a few years ago, Greg and Nina were running marathons, participating in triathlons, and looking forward to buying a house on the Central Coast. Then Greg noticed some symptoms with his heart. Through various testing he was diagnosed with hereditary hypertrophic cardiomyopathy (which has caused sudden death in athletes) and told that he needed a defibrillator implanted. Unfortunately, a large cancerous tumor was incidentally found on one of his kidneys and he had his left kidney removed within 3 weeks of discovery, and diagnosed with stage 3 renal cell carcinoma late 2016. Greg and Nina kept busy in 2017 with 2 full-time jobs, Greg commuting a total of 3 hrs a day and receiving IV immunotherapy for his cancer every 3 weeks, all the whileadjusting to becoming a family of 4 as their daughter was born exactly 2 months after Greg’s kidney was removed.
On May 2nd Greg had the defibrillator implanted. The surgery went well, but when he was ready to be released, he suffered a major stroke and subsequent seizures due to brain swelling. He was in ICU for almost a week. His doctors are stunned. Currently he is in an acute rehabilitation facility for various therapies before returning home. He has been there about 3 weeks and now his insurance wants him released. He is still in a wheelchair. In order for Nina to continue working full-time, she will need to hire a caretaker for Greg for at least the 50 hours a week she is out of the home, which is terribly expensive, and they will be living on only Nina’s salary. He will have to commute at least an hour each way to receive his therapy as there are no adequate facilities where they live. There is no long term care insurance (young people rarely think they will need it!) or disability. This kind of care will cost $7,000 to $9,000 per month! And this doesn’t include the cost for all the medical bills and therapy that is not covered by insurance. On top of all this, they were finally set to move to the Central Coast a few weeks after Greg’s surgery with a rental home secured, boxes packed, movers set, and a new job to start in June. All those plans had to be cancelled.
Greg and Nina would be so very grateful for anything you can do. Make a donation (nothing is too small!) and share this request with others in your network via emails or social media.
Small things done by many people can make such a difference! We all thank you from the bottom of our hearts for anything you can do
Greg turned 40 on March 17th. He has a wife and two young children, ages 1.5 and 4 yrs old. They need him desperately. Greg will probably never return to his CPA career, and Nina will continue to work full-time to provide for the family. Greg will require full time 24 hour care and probably years of physical, occupational, and speech therapy to recover and come back to us. We are all praying that he will come back.It’s hard to believe but up until a few years ago, Greg and Nina were running marathons, participating in triathlons, and looking forward to buying a house on the Central Coast. Then Greg noticed some symptoms with his heart. Through various testing he was diagnosed with hereditary hypertrophic cardiomyopathy (which has caused sudden death in athletes) and told that he needed a defibrillator implanted. Unfortunately, a large cancerous tumor was incidentally found on one of his kidneys and he had his left kidney removed within 3 weeks of discovery, and diagnosed with stage 3 renal cell carcinoma late 2016. Greg and Nina kept busy in 2017 with 2 full-time jobs, Greg commuting a total of 3 hrs a day and receiving IV immunotherapy for his cancer every 3 weeks, all the whileadjusting to becoming a family of 4 as their daughter was born exactly 2 months after Greg’s kidney was removed.
On May 2nd Greg had the defibrillator implanted. The surgery went well, but when he was ready to be released, he suffered a major stroke and subsequent seizures due to brain swelling. He was in ICU for almost a week. His doctors are stunned. Currently he is in an acute rehabilitation facility for various therapies before returning home. He has been there about 3 weeks and now his insurance wants him released. He is still in a wheelchair. In order for Nina to continue working full-time, she will need to hire a caretaker for Greg for at least the 50 hours a week she is out of the home, which is terribly expensive, and they will be living on only Nina’s salary. He will have to commute at least an hour each way to receive his therapy as there are no adequate facilities where they live. There is no long term care insurance (young people rarely think they will need it!) or disability. This kind of care will cost $7,000 to $9,000 per month! And this doesn’t include the cost for all the medical bills and therapy that is not covered by insurance. On top of all this, they were finally set to move to the Central Coast a few weeks after Greg’s surgery with a rental home secured, boxes packed, movers set, and a new job to start in June. All those plans had to be cancelled.
Greg and Nina would be so very grateful for anything you can do. Make a donation (nothing is too small!) and share this request with others in your network via emails or social media.
Small things done by many people can make such a difference! We all thank you from the bottom of our hearts for anything you can do
Organizer and beneficiary
Kathrine Russell
Organizer
Los Angeles, CA
Nina Suh
Beneficiary