Help Fund Jonny's New Normal

Hi everyone!

This GoFundMe has been set up to raise money for my good friend Jonny Moneley who was recently blindsided by complications due to Ulcerative Colitis, which resulted in him having emergency surgery and has left him with a stoma which he will likely have for the next couple of years of his life.

He had a very rough time in hospital having to stay there as an inpatient for 39 days – but thankfully he is home now and building his strength back bit by bit. This GoFundMe will hopefully give him a bit of financial help to deal with his new normal living with a stoma, paying for his medical supplies and medications, paying for his medical bills, and contributing to his future surgeries (which if all goes well, will enable the surgeons to reverse his stoma!).

There are a lot of costs that you might not consider when living with a stoma and we really wanted to help Jonny out and make the adaptation to his new life as easy and painless as possible. Removing or easing some of the financial burden of the stoma will hopefully accomplish this.

To begin with, the bags for the stoma are around €4 each. He also has to take six Imodium per day to help him to absorb water from his food – that costs him another €4 per day. There are special wipes for cleaning the stoma, bin bags for safely disposing of the bags, and a few other things that take the total daily cost of having a stoma to around €10 per day. If Jonny has the stoma for a year – that’s an extra €3,650 of a living expense that has been forced upon him.

There are also a couple of “big ticket” items that we know will make Jonny’s life with a stoma a lot easier. The bathroom in his apartment is not practical for the safe and hygienic care of his stoma and regular changing of his stoma bag. New bathroom furniture such as a wider shower, toilet with wash basin and stoma bag changing station will really help him to normalise all the things he has to do in the bathroom now and help it to become second nature to him. Better lighting and ventilation would be a huge help too.

We have no estimate as of yet as to what Jonny’s medical bills will be. He does not have health insurance, but I suppose we’ll just have to wait and see what his bill will be for his first 39 day stint! He has two more surgeries on the horizon too – but again, we have no idea how much they will set him back.

In total, we estimate that this whole experience is going to cost Jonny well in excess of €10,000 and Jonny has given us permission to see if we can raise half of that through this GoFundMe campaign. Let’s see if we can push the limits!!

Give whatever you can and thank you so much for supporting our friend. Jonny himself will share a few stories of what exactly he went through in the hospital and what Ulcerative Colitis is like. And we’ll share a few light-hearted videos and photos that he took when he was in the hospital keeping us all entertained. Keep any eye on the page!

Update:

We are blown away by all of the donations, love and support so far. A massive thank you to everyone who has donated. <3

A link to Jonny's account of his 39 day spell in hospital can be found here:

https://medium.com/@jonathanoconnormoneley/my-hospital-experience-fab246b9910b