Help Grace Heal Without Financial Stress

Hi, I’m Luke Buckingham. To whoever is seeing this, if y’all know my wife Grace, you probably already know she’s in the hospital with a pretty serious case of influenza and pneumonia, and some lung and various other organ damage related to not receiving enough oxygen for a good while.

She went into the hospital Sunday, 2/9/25, around 3 pm with difficulty breathing. They did all their tests and diagnosed her with influenza and a secondary infection of pneumonia. They put her on non-invasive airway support, and she was on that for about 5 hours before they determined she wasn’t getting enough oxygen. They called me for consent to intubate and sedate her around 10 pm. By 5 am, 2/10/25, Monday, she was still not getting enough oxygen, so they called again for consent to perform a procedure that essentially bypasses her heart. They installed long tubes in her arteries that pull her blood out and run it through what is called an ECMO machine that oxygenates her blood and then returns it to her arteries. This is so her lungs have time to heal. At best estimate, she will be on this form of support for about 3 weeks. That’s an optimistic time frame though; she will likely be in the hospital for over a month.

I’m seeking some help offsetting the cost of her lost wages in this time as a whole bunch of our monthly bills are going to start stacking up very quickly while she’s not going back to work. Neither she nor I qualify for the FMLA assistance as we haven’t been at our current jobs long enough. As far as I’m aware, so far our two insurance plans combined have her covered for medical bills, so this assistance is purely for household bills, mortgage, car insurance, and utilities. I’m asking for more than she would be making in hopes that when she recovers, she doesn’t feel pressured to return to work ASAP and takes her time getting back on her feet, as a month in the hospital is hard on your body, and I don’t want her getting worse just because she’s worried about bills. Absolutely any assistance at all, no matter how small, will be appreciated. Much love and thanks for all the support to those who have reached out.