Help Dave Phillips Recover: Stroke, Cancer and Care

Hi our family really needs your help. This is my dad with my myself on the right and my sisters when we were young. The last year has been devastating for our whole family and this may be too lengthy to some but I need you to understand the weight of what we are dealing with by just putting it all out there. It started last year in South Carolina when my dad had a life changing stroke leaving him partially paralyzed and in a wheelchair. He had been living with my sister Molly...her husband and my 12 year old nephew there. The resources for surgery were non existant where the ambulance took him after the stroke so we made the decision to get him to the Cleveland Clinic. We fought every day for the insurance to transfer him up here because they told us it was unsafe to travel without an ambulance. We finally got him up here after endless daily calls. The day after he was transported to Cleveland we received a call that my sister Molly who he lived with drowned in a pool in front of my nephew and passed away. We all had to be as strong as possible for my dad and now he didn't have a home to go back to. He was put into skilled nursing facilities to get rehab because he needed extensive physical and occupational therapy. Shortly after.. we received the news that he could no longer receive surgery because his carotid arteries had completely closed and would have to be managed with meds. These past months we have been juggling insurance...neglectful and abusive facilities...handling all his affairs...fighting for therapy...filing appeals and the right to see Drs. outside the facility have been BEYOND stressful with 0 help. We keep fighting for his life and acceptable care but hit walls everytime. Insurance kept cutting off his much needed therapy at facility but telling us we had to keep him there or we would be taking him out against medical advice without the number of required therapy hours. The insurance was paying them THOUSANDS a month for horrible care and now NO THERAPY. Some days I was with him all day and they never even came in and were charting that they gave him his medicine and treatments that were not given. He also had a small "cyst" that we were told was "benign" by a Dr we later learned had never taken a biopsy. I was changing his shirt one day when I was called up by him because he was left sitting in a urine soaked gown and needed to be washed up and no one was answering his call light for hours. I was beyond shocked to see the "cyst" was now bigger than a golf ball and hard and bright red. I flagged down their nurse practitioner and asked if she could come look. We were all in complete disbelief that NO ONE saw it or charted it if they were changing his clothes and showering him regularly. We were told we could not take him out of facility to have it checked. We had to use their Drs. This was the last straw. We had to take him out of the facility because he was declining. The facility didn't do any discharge for him...no meds...no home care referral...no therapy referral...NOTHING. We found someone (family friend) that would allow him to have a ramp at house and accept his fixed income which doesn't even barely cover rent. We need to now put a full bath downstairs with a handicapped tub and make the place more wheelchair friendly and handicapped accessible and are bombarded with things he needs and these things were declined by insurance so far. We even had to get a vehicle he could get into to take him to appts and therapy. We immediately made an appt for biopsy and were devastated to find out the "cyst" is now Melanoma. He is now being seen by an Oncologist for Cancer and receiving immunotherapy. We had to do all they didn't do plus get him to appts..find new Dr's in Ohio...apply for MyCare Ohio waiver...get him in therapy..etc etc. He has started having seizures

and now he can not ever be alone because he didn't even have time to call anyone before he lost consciousness. We are beyond exhausted...struggling to keep up...endless appointments for post stroke and Cancer...skin checks...outpatient therapy and beyond stressed. I haven't even had time to process the death of my sister. We have to keep it moving and keep pushing. I have applied for myself to be his direct care provider because I have been a licensed STNA and EMT since 1996 but had to redo and update all my qualifications for STNA because I had not been in the medical field for quite some time. I have been forced to leave my career(s)..regroup..and focus on remote jobs or anything else we can do to turn this all around. It is like juggling a million balls and if I drop one everything will come crashing down. We never ask for help. We usually just figure everything out but now I must swallow my pride and ask for help for his sake because we cannot keep up with all his needs while caring for him 24/7. We now have all our bills and all of his. My dad has always been there for all of us and now we need to be there for him. We need him to be safe at home...have the proper in home care / equipment that he needs...and need to be able to bring in help so we can have a break once and awhile so we don't burn out. This has been a really hard road for us and we can't make money quickly enough to cover all his needs. We have tried to always be there for everyone who needs us but now we are stretched thin so we are looking to our friends...chosen family and anyone who is able to pitch in so we can get back on our feet again and regain some balance back in our lives. I know sometimes it takes a village to acheive this type of goal which is really hard for me to admit and come to the realization that we can't do it alone anymore. Thank you for listening. Any help is appreciated.