Help James & Lea on the medical misery tour.

Hello everyone my name is James (The Stonecarver). Things in my wife Lea and I's life have hit a crunch. Many of you are aware of the medical craziness that has been going on in our lives for the past 6 months due to my Lea posts and updates. However, this insane odyssey has been going on in a steadily escalating fashion for more than 2 years. I have been trying to the best of my abilities to keep a roof over our heads and both of us on this side of the grass. We have "borrowed from Peter to pay Paul" and drained our "furnace fund" savings to cover the mortgage and daily bills, especially during the early covid and accompanying pneumonia when I was left twisting by my HR. I went in on Aug 29th for the knee replacement surgery I have been postponing since Lea first got the cancer diagnosis last fall (it now HAS to be done). When one of our best friends saw us quietly scrambling to cover the bills and keep our house, she asked me to do a short reader's digest version of what exactly has led to this so she could organize some form of fundraiser to help. I did as she asked and it wasn't until I reread it that I realized just how nuts it really has been! When you are going through this, the only way you can keep going forward is step by step, crisis to crisis covering everything you can and trying to anticipate the next craziness. It is comparable to trying to keep your balance crossing an arctic ice floe jumping from one floating piece of ice to the next. If you can come out to the fundraiser it would be wonderful to see you and spend a bit of time together. If you can't but would still like to help there is a link for that as well. Hopefully by that time I will be recovered enough at least to try to dance and the Chemo and radiation (we are looking at a very specific target for that) will have done an even better job for Lea. Once again step by step. Thank you everyone for your prayers and good wishes.

Over the past few years life has been a bit of an on-going adventure for Lea and I. Starting with a severe (published in a medical journal type of severe white blood cell count of 448. Normal is between 6-9) infection from a knee replacement. This was followed by getting Covid in Feb of 2020 followed by 2 bouts of double pneumonia. Then May 4th an emergency surgery to repair a twisted hernia in early may (while still dealing with double pneumonia). While taking care of the immediate problem (hernia travelling stomach twisted stomach), this surgery turned out to be a resounding failure almost killing Lea. As a result of tightening the esophagus too tight from that point on Lea could only eat or drink tiny little sips or bites without it coming back up. Both of us were then hit by long haul Covid, exhaustion, brain fog (a real problem when you make your living with that brain) muscle pain and strangely enough over 10 teeth each snapping off. The long-haul symptoms have continued to this day. Meanwhile, I was told I needed to have knee replacement surgery as the damage was by now far beyond Rehabs or cortisone shots ability to fix. Then in Nov of 2021 Lea was informed she had a cancerous tumour and we began the arrangements for Chemo & radiation. Just as we were starting that, the blood thinners that lea was taking to reduce the double embolisms in her lungs went sideways and she came incredibly close to bleeding out internally. An emergency large 2 unit transfusion and hospital stay and we passed that hurdle and moved on to the cancer treatment. Within a month of finishing the cancer treatment we had an emergency with the never properly fixed hernia and the stomach twisting and stopping all food and nutrition. At this point Lea lost 60 pounds and was very weak. Lea had numerous hospital stays attempted surgery (cancelled when she went into a catatonic fugue) and was sent home. Then we had a life and death emergency when her stomach twisted and broke, putting her into toxic shock. Much to the surprise of the medical team, she survived that. After several weeks in the ICU, and the surgical trauma unit, followed by the rehab we were then informed that the lung biopsy had come back positive and before being radiated to oblivion, the tumour had shed and she had at least two tumours in her lungs and so the next battle is back to Chemo. Also the knee replacement surgery that I have postponed multiple times can no longer be delayed, apparently the running between hospitals and appointments has made it considerably worse and if I'm going to be able to help Lea later I need to get it done now. So the knee Replacement has been done and I have discovered in the first couple of days levels of pain I was unaware. Fortunately that has gotten a bit better and I am working on the balance between the pain healing and physio-therapy to get back in the fight. Thank you everyone for your kind thoughts and whatever assistance you can bring to the situation.