Help Ease Surrogacy Complication Debt

TLDR: Surrogacy hormones sent me to the ER. I spent three months fighting for my life in multiple hospitals, and now I have medical debt to pay.

This past January 2024, I started taking estrogen pills and progesterone in oil injections to prepare my body for surrogacy. On the second day of taking the injection (January 20th), I noticed that I was having some pain and discomfort in my abdomen on the right side under my rib cage. I took some OTC pain relief medication and tried not to think on it. But as the day went on the pain continued to get worse to the point that it woke me in the middle of the night and I told my fiancé (at the time) that I had to go to the ER. I honestly wasn’t sure what was going on but I didn’t think it was that big of a deal, and I was completely wrong there. At the ER I was placed in a room and waited for what seemed like an eternity and the pain continued to get worse, to the point that I was throwing up and screaming for relief. At this point, there’s a big gap in my memory due to hallucinating and this is what I was told by my fiancé: the ER doctor said that this was diabetes (I am NOT diabetic), a friend of mine told me that this could be my gallbladder and that I needed to get it removed. I was then transferred from my local ER to hospital 2 for the elective surgery to get my gallbladder removed and there they did some testing and found that I actually had Necrotizing Pancreatitis. At this point, it was so severe that hospital 2 didn’t have the means to treat me and I was transferred to hospital 3. When I was admitted to hospital 3 on one of their ICU floors a dialysis port was put in on my chest (it was on my neck but in my delirious state I kept trying to pull it out so they moved it to my chest) and I started getting dialysis three times a week. I was also given a dobhoff (feeding tube) to maintain my nutrition and many many more tests were being done. At this time an IV infiltrated my right arm as well and that started what would later be addressed as a very severe wound. Shortly after getting settled at hospital 3, my amazing Sister-In-Law drove from Mississippi to stay at the hospital with me (she was also originally going to be traveling with me for surrogacy stuff) and she stayed with me for almost my entire time at hospital 3. About a week to two weeks of being there I’d gotten better enough to be transferred out of the ICU to a regular patient room and I’d started physical therapy as well. Roughly a week into being in that room, on February 9th, a day when my physical therapist came to work with me, I’d coded and was legally dead for two minutes. My SIL was there for it all (bless her amazing heart for what she went through and witnessed that morning. She held my body as she helped my therapist guide me to the floor). The next thing I remember is waking up unable to talk because of the tube in my throat and my hands tied down (so I wouldn’t pull the tube out) and my dad and husband at my bedside. The following couple of days trying to breathe on my own and getting the vent tube out were difficult but I did it and restarted my road to recovery. Oh, I’d coded due to internal bleeding. My brother came up at this time to be with my SIL and to help stay with me for a bit as well. But the next couple of weeks were hell. I don’t have really anything nice I’ll say about the rest of my time at hospital 3. I was on continuous dialysis for a while and the very little therapy that I’d received was terrible and painful. CPS was also anonymously called about my oldest daughter (none of the allegations were true and the case was closed almost immediately) but someone was trying to take my daughter away from me while I was in the hospital and my fiancé and I had to emergently get married so that he could get full custody of my oldest to keep her from being removed from his care. And to top it off my SIL and brother had to return home and I was only able to see my parents and husband once a week each going forward. In a nutshell, my experience there was so unpleasant that patient advocacy had to get involved and the threat of legal action. Then I was finally transferred out of there to hospital 4 and things FINALLY started looking up for me. Within one week of being at hospital 4, my kidneys were monitored and it was decided that I didn’t need dialysis anymore and my port was removed. I’d also started to get wound care for an infiltrated IV injury that went untouched for my duration of time at hospital 3. My feeding tube was soon removed, though traumatically (it had gotten clogged, had to be replaced, then repositioned and when that happened the tube wouldn’t move the way the doctor wanted it to so they removed it), and I was eating on my own again. Physical and occupational therapy also started at hospital 4 and though I was terrified both of my therapists took the time to comfort and guide me and by the end of my stay at hospital 4 I was walking (with a walker) again, building muscle, and relearning how to care for myself again. I wasn’t at hospital 4 for very long and then I was transferred to rehab. I was at rehab for 7 days before they deemed me healthy and capable enough to go home. They worked me hard during my therapy times and my wound care also continued as needed but by the time I was discharged, I was confidently walking and caring for myself. I was discharged on March 28, 2024. At home I am receiving home heath PT and OT and I still have many doctors appointments to go before I’ll be completely healthy again.

Now all of this being said, I have a MOUNTAIN of medical bills (what insurance didn’t cover), and I am sinking fast in debt. Any help would be amazing and proof that funds are going towards medical bills can be provided.