Help Family Dealing With Medical Emergency
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My name is Dustin. I’m a 38 year old veteran. I’m married to a wonderful woman, and we have three beautiful children.

I have a full time job, but had a normally scheduled surgery on my neck in September that exhausted all of my sick and vacation time. That surgery went well and everything was fine until a couple of weeks ago. I began having extreme abdominal pain. While I have been diagnosed with Irratable Bowl Syndrome in the past this was a little different. A little more severe. I tried to stick it out as I had no sick time and was trying to save a couple days up so I could join the sick time pool at work.
Tragedy struck when I woke up one morning in excruciating pain. With the Veterans Administration I couldn’t just go to the nearest hospital, the VA will almost never pay for that even if it is a life threatening injury. (You see a couple years ago I got a kidney stone and didn’t know what was going on. There was no way I could make the drive to the closest VA hospital by myself, Bay Pines is over an hour away from my house, so we are still paying off my bills from that incident as well.)
Back to the night in question. Knowing I had to make it to Bay Pines I decided to drive myself the hour and fifteen minutes north across the Skyway Bridge. I went into the ER barely able to walk and with a high fever. A CT Scan and a few hours later I was diagnosed with and abscess on my large intestine and a perforated colon. The doctors decided to put a drain into the abscess, and I thought I was on the road to recovery. Lots of medicine and a few days later things started to go bad though. The drain didn’t seem to be draining correctly, I was bloated, and the fever wasn’t really going away, but my care team at Bay Pines thought I was doing great. When they pulled the drain out of my side it was one of the worst things I’d ever experienced. It was like an explosion of sickness poured out of my body and the doctor slapped on a bandage to stop the flow coming out of me and said I was great and I was left in the room with my wonderful wife Marilyn who was staring in horror at what just came out of me. A moment later Marilyn ran to get my nurse because the back flow in my abdomen had come out of the drain hole and basically blown apart the bandage the doctor put on. So the nurse came in and slapped on a bigger bandage and said it should be good now and walked out. That was the first time I looked at my wife and told her I didn’t think I was going to make it. That was on Monday. They released me home the next day.
Once I got home I felt a little better, but that was just from being home. Wednesday morning at about 5:30am I woke up to go to the bathroom and something in my abdomen popped. I couldn’t move. All I could do was stand in my bathroom and scream. My wife of course rushed to my side and helped guide me back in the bed, but we were under no illusions. I would be going back to the hospital that day. My boys got off to school, but my wife drops my daughter off. So we were trying to wait until she got back from that so she could take me. My body had other plans and we were forced to call for an ambulance. Knowing that at this point, to save my life, we were going to have to go to a local ER and pay the bill. Unfortunately my seven year old daughter got to witness the whole ordeal. The screaming and pain that I went through as the great paramedics did what they could to get me on a stretcher. My mother in law arrived then to grab my daughter and get her out of there. I ended up in the ER at Blake Medical Center.
At Bay Pines they told me I was lucky to be alive. That if I hadn’t gotten there when I did I may have died. I was then told the same thing less than a day from leaving Bay Pines. Blake ER nurse said to me after my CTScan “You should be so thankful that your wife called for that ambulance Mr. Vigneault. You were going to die.” So, in the space of a week and a half, I almost died twice from the same abdominal issue.
I’m now on day four from surgery. I had to have an exploratory laparotomy to determine the extent of the damage and infection in my bowel. I needed a colon resection after they removed six inches of my large intestine that the doctor said “Had become as hard as PVC pipe.” I now have a colostomy. The doctors are very hopeful that it will be reversible.
Most of all I have my life and my wonderful family. Through all of this I have had the undeniable support of the best wife a person could ever ask for. Marilyn has been both Mother and Father to our children. Taking them to school picking them up and being at the hospital with me all day and into the night. Even when she had an hour and fifteen minute drive home every night. I don’t know how she has accomplished everything. Especially since she’s had to go back to work this week. At least I’m in a hospital only five minutes from the house now. I would not be here without my wife right now, and I owe her my life.
We have had family step in and help get the kids to and from school, and friends have made us dinners. Thank you all for that.

What We Need
I’m writing this today to ask if there is anyone out there that can help my family. I am not normally a person that reaches out for help. We are a very strong and self reliant family, but at this point it is still up in the air if the VA will pay for the surgery since it was done at a civilian facility. My issue is that I am now going to be out of work for at least 12 weeks. My job will be there for me once I’m healthy, but I’m not sure how we’ll pay all our bills until I get there. While I appreciate that thoughts and prayers everyone has been sending us. I can’t write a check to keep my lights on with that. Anything anyone can do to help us I appreciate more than you know.
Thank you for your time and generosity.
Dustin
I have a full time job, but had a normally scheduled surgery on my neck in September that exhausted all of my sick and vacation time. That surgery went well and everything was fine until a couple of weeks ago. I began having extreme abdominal pain. While I have been diagnosed with Irratable Bowl Syndrome in the past this was a little different. A little more severe. I tried to stick it out as I had no sick time and was trying to save a couple days up so I could join the sick time pool at work.
Tragedy struck when I woke up one morning in excruciating pain. With the Veterans Administration I couldn’t just go to the nearest hospital, the VA will almost never pay for that even if it is a life threatening injury. (You see a couple years ago I got a kidney stone and didn’t know what was going on. There was no way I could make the drive to the closest VA hospital by myself, Bay Pines is over an hour away from my house, so we are still paying off my bills from that incident as well.)
Back to the night in question. Knowing I had to make it to Bay Pines I decided to drive myself the hour and fifteen minutes north across the Skyway Bridge. I went into the ER barely able to walk and with a high fever. A CT Scan and a few hours later I was diagnosed with and abscess on my large intestine and a perforated colon. The doctors decided to put a drain into the abscess, and I thought I was on the road to recovery. Lots of medicine and a few days later things started to go bad though. The drain didn’t seem to be draining correctly, I was bloated, and the fever wasn’t really going away, but my care team at Bay Pines thought I was doing great. When they pulled the drain out of my side it was one of the worst things I’d ever experienced. It was like an explosion of sickness poured out of my body and the doctor slapped on a bandage to stop the flow coming out of me and said I was great and I was left in the room with my wonderful wife Marilyn who was staring in horror at what just came out of me. A moment later Marilyn ran to get my nurse because the back flow in my abdomen had come out of the drain hole and basically blown apart the bandage the doctor put on. So the nurse came in and slapped on a bigger bandage and said it should be good now and walked out. That was the first time I looked at my wife and told her I didn’t think I was going to make it. That was on Monday. They released me home the next day.
Once I got home I felt a little better, but that was just from being home. Wednesday morning at about 5:30am I woke up to go to the bathroom and something in my abdomen popped. I couldn’t move. All I could do was stand in my bathroom and scream. My wife of course rushed to my side and helped guide me back in the bed, but we were under no illusions. I would be going back to the hospital that day. My boys got off to school, but my wife drops my daughter off. So we were trying to wait until she got back from that so she could take me. My body had other plans and we were forced to call for an ambulance. Knowing that at this point, to save my life, we were going to have to go to a local ER and pay the bill. Unfortunately my seven year old daughter got to witness the whole ordeal. The screaming and pain that I went through as the great paramedics did what they could to get me on a stretcher. My mother in law arrived then to grab my daughter and get her out of there. I ended up in the ER at Blake Medical Center.
At Bay Pines they told me I was lucky to be alive. That if I hadn’t gotten there when I did I may have died. I was then told the same thing less than a day from leaving Bay Pines. Blake ER nurse said to me after my CTScan “You should be so thankful that your wife called for that ambulance Mr. Vigneault. You were going to die.” So, in the space of a week and a half, I almost died twice from the same abdominal issue.
I’m now on day four from surgery. I had to have an exploratory laparotomy to determine the extent of the damage and infection in my bowel. I needed a colon resection after they removed six inches of my large intestine that the doctor said “Had become as hard as PVC pipe.” I now have a colostomy. The doctors are very hopeful that it will be reversible.
Most of all I have my life and my wonderful family. Through all of this I have had the undeniable support of the best wife a person could ever ask for. Marilyn has been both Mother and Father to our children. Taking them to school picking them up and being at the hospital with me all day and into the night. Even when she had an hour and fifteen minute drive home every night. I don’t know how she has accomplished everything. Especially since she’s had to go back to work this week. At least I’m in a hospital only five minutes from the house now. I would not be here without my wife right now, and I owe her my life.
We have had family step in and help get the kids to and from school, and friends have made us dinners. Thank you all for that.
What We Need
I’m writing this today to ask if there is anyone out there that can help my family. I am not normally a person that reaches out for help. We are a very strong and self reliant family, but at this point it is still up in the air if the VA will pay for the surgery since it was done at a civilian facility. My issue is that I am now going to be out of work for at least 12 weeks. My job will be there for me once I’m healthy, but I’m not sure how we’ll pay all our bills until I get there. While I appreciate that thoughts and prayers everyone has been sending us. I can’t write a check to keep my lights on with that. Anything anyone can do to help us I appreciate more than you know.
Thank you for your time and generosity.
Dustin
Organizer
Dustin Vigneault
Organizer
Bradenton, FL