Help for Mary Voigt

In March of this year, Mary was admitted to the hospital for an infection and pain management.  She was given IV antibiotics and, eventually, a Patient Controlled Analgesia (PCA) pump so her pain could be managed better.  After two days of tremendous pain and extremely uncomfortable side effects from heavy duty antibiotics, the health team finally got Mary on medications that started to make her feel better.  Fentanyl was the pain medication that finally began to manage her pain.  On the third morning of her hospital stay, Mary’s PCA pump was beeping.  Her nurse came in her room to figure out what was happening.  While attempting to stop the beeping, the nurse made a procedural error and Mary was over dosed with Fentanyl and went into cardiac arrest.  She was given Narcan to reverse the effects of the Fentanyl , was resuscitated and moved to the Intensive Care Unit.

After six days in the hospital, Mary’s infection was better and she was released.  Soon after her discharge, Mary, along with family and friends, began to see drastic changes in her memory, speech and general health.  Mary stuttered frequently, got tongue tied and had virtually no short term memory.  Mary went on short term disability to recover from the overdose for approximately four weeks before going back to work.  Mary is a Respiratory Therapist at the University of Minnesota Masonic Children’s Hospital.  She works in the Pediatric Intensive Care Unit and the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit working with very sick children and babies.  She is also specially trained to be on the hospitals transport team.  While working, Mary was barely making it through the days.  She was exhausted from working eight to twelve hour shifts.  All she did was work and sleep.  On top of the exhaustion, Mary began to have post-traumatic stress symptoms from working in a critical care unit.  After battling for three months through the stress and exhaustion and seeing many specialists and doctors, Mary had to make the difficult decision to go on long-term disability.

Mary has been diagnosed with a Traumatic Brain Injury, Post-traumatic Stress Disorder and Depression.  Although Mary looks fine, she is not.  She suffers from nausea, fatigue and terrible headaches on a daily basis.  She has good days sprinkled in, but for the most part, she rests and goes to doctor’s appointments.  Everyone that knows Mary knows that is not her normal behavior.  She used to work at the hospital like a crazy person, sometimes working over seventy hours a week.  She was involved in a bocce ball league, as well as being heavily involved with her family, especially her niece and nephew.

Being on long-term disability has put a large financial strain on Mary.  Although she is fortunate enough to work for an organization that has disability benefits, it’s barely enough to make her monthly mortgage and car payments.  Mary continues to need rest to heal her brain and needs time to see the doctors and specialists to help her, as well.  Her return to work date is still undetermined.  We are holding this benefit in order to help take some of the financial stress and burden off of Mary so she can recover more quickly without having to worry about finances.