Ginny a Double Amputee Needs Help w Medical Bills

Hi, my name is Ginny White-Peacock, and I lost both my legs and 9 of my fingers due to Toxic Shock Syndrome. I contracted a bacterial infection through a scraped knee, and three days later, I was in ICU fighting for my life. I was in a coma for three weeks and spent two months in St. David's Austin. I was in complete organ failure, and they had to give me a lifesaving medicine, which led to my fingers and feet dying. My hands and feet looked like I had severe frostbite and were hard like wood. I was put on 24-hour dialysis because I was in complete kidney failure. When I woke up from the coma, I also had muscular atrophy, so I could not move. I had about seven different doctors who all told me that it was a miracle that I was alive. Only one person in a million goes into Toxic Shock in the U.S. annually. It is extremely rare, and the survival rate is around 25%.

While I was in the hospital, my orthopedic surgeon amputated 9 of my fingers. I was actually glad to get rid of those dead fingers because it was impossible to do anything with them. I was 100% handicapped. I could not feed myself or even change the channel on the remote. I would have to blow in a tube to call the nurses and my husband, Mike, never left my side. My two sons, James and Jackson, could not visit me for six weeks since they were minors. I no longer could work at my family's business, the Broken Spoke, where I had worked for 25 years. All of our lives were turned upside down pretty much overnight.

And I had no health insurance. We could not afford it, and we did not qualify for Medicare at the time I got sick. We also could not afford any aftercare. So I'm in the hospital fighting for my life, and we're stressing over the huge medical bills that I'm racking up every day.

After about two months, I was released from the hospital right before Christmas. I still could not use my legs, and I still had the dry gangrene on both my feet. My orthopedic surgeon wanted to wait to amputate my lower legs to see if the damage would shrink so he wouldn't have to amputate so much. I was sent home, not knowing how my husband and I would manage my care. I still had drainage tubes in my stomach, a colostomy bag and a catheter. Being home with no doctors or nurses to watch after me was extremely scary. We had to buy a lift to get me in and out of bed because I could not move. It took several months to be able to move my arms and legs normally.

About two months after I was home from the hospital, I got an abscess on one of my feet, so I was admitted to the hospital immediately, and my orthopedic surgeon scheduled my lower legs to be amputated. And just like losing the fingers, I was happy to get rid of my diseased feet. It was like getting rid of two cinderblocks that were weighing me down. I spent another week in the hospital, and once again, we had to bypass physical therapy aftercare because we had no insurance to pay for it. 

Several months after I was released to go home, we were completely blessed by a non-profit called “Wiggle Your Toes”. They actually donated prosthetic legs to me! We would of never been able to afford them since they cost around $60,000. I started the process of fitting them etc but once again, we couldn’t afford the therapy that goes along with learning how to walk on prosthetics. This was also around the time that Coronavirus hit us all and we began living in a pandemic. Everything had to be put on hold. 

My dad was one of my biggest supporters and he just wanted to see me walking again. He said he remembered me learning to walk up at the Broken Spoke, holding onto all the tables and he said he just wanted to see me walking around up there again. Unfortunately, my dad passed away on Jan. 24, 2021 but I’m determined to walk again for him, my husband and my kids.  And with everyone’s continued help, I’ll be able to go to therapy,  to learn how to walk with prosthetics. I’m ready to move forward with whatever life has in-store for me. Thank y’all.