Help for The Brandts

Jessie is a strong woman that does not like to burden anyone with her own problems but I feel like now is the time we get together and help her and her sons out. If we, her friends and family could help alleviate the financial burden caused by her current health issues than Jessie can focus on getting healthy. Thank you for your help sharing and/or donating to help such a wonderful family through this hard time.

From Jessie,

What started out as a bowel obstruction two months ago that ended up correcting itself while I was overnight at the hospital, yet GI and tummy issues spiraled from there.

After that I began to feel my stomach hurt like I had just had gastric bypass all over again wasn't able to keep much food down just very little bites but it always felt like my stomach was swelling.

I woke up one day a few weeks back with such incredible pain at the center of my stomach right at the base of my rib cage. Initially I thought it could be gallstones. I tried to crawl to my room and get dressed and get myself ready to drive to the hospital, by the time I crawled back down the hallway I realized it was 2 hours. It took me 2 hours just to go get dressed and to get to the living room I had to move that slow with the stabbing sensation in my back and the feeling that my stomach had exploded from the gastric bypass pouch.

Ended up calling an ambulance and went to Hillcrest hospital. I was in Hillcrest hospital for 9 hours in excruciating pain and calling out for help none of the doctors there or nurses would tell me what's going on the only thing that they told me is they're waiting for a call back from my surgeon who did my gastric bypass. It wasn't until the 9th hour when an ambulance came to transport me to St Francis that I was filled in on what went wrong. Those ambulance drivers let me know that I was being taken to St Francis where my original surgeons partner was to have emergency surgery.

There was a perforated ulcer at the bottom of my gastric bypass tummy pouch that has separated my intestines from my stomach and my abdomen was full of free-flowing air and fluids. They did emergency surgery at 11:30 that night at St Francis to repair the holes and drain as much fluid off my abdomen as they could. I was on strict IV fluids and kept in the hospital for 5 days after that surgery. On the 6th day they had me try to drink clear liquids to see if I could tolerate it. I was able to keep clear liquids and broth down so they let me go home with restrictions.

I was home not quite a week and still had issues with my tummy and around day 5 after that surgery I was getting worse. Pain medicine was not working and my abdomen constantly had a shooting pain and I had started to feel the sharp stabbing feeling between my shoulder blades and my left shoulder again. I went back to Bailey medical's emergency room last Sunday and they did some scanning and other tests to find out there was another infection and a abscess that developed right next to or on my spleen that had started to leak.

Again I was hospitalized for 5 days with strictly only IV fluids and pumped full of antibiotics. They did a live X-Ray Scan where I had to drink the contrast to see if there was an active leak and there wasn't any longer. They let me try clear liquids and broths late Saturday night and Sunday morning and I was able to come home for the rest of the recovery Sunday night.

Currently I'm unable to do the simplest task like put clothes in the washing machine or wipe down cabinet tops I have to walk around the house to prevent blood clots, but I have to lay down or sit down 90% of the time to allow my intestines to heal. Unfortunately I'm extremely susceptible for more abscess to pop up because there is still liquid in my tummy that was from the original perforated ulcer. The recovery for the ulcer in the abscess is 8 weeks. The doctor also let me know that it could be the end of October before my body fully absorbs some of the free-flowing fluids and it is not a slow process I just have to be careful and make sure no more infections or abscess pop up.

I'm basically without pay for the beginning of FLMA and limited pay if approved for short-term disability. I just feel so helpless I can't even do simple task but I have to take it easy or it will not get better at all.