We’re Ken & Barbara Deffendall. With this GoFundMe, we’re asking for your help with outstanding medical bills.

After retiring in 2019 and moving to Idaho, we’ve been hit with one medical issue after another. In 2021, Barbara was diagnosed with AMAN (acute motor oxonal neuropathy). She totally lost the use of her legs in a matter of weeks. Local hospitals struggled to identify her condition. Even after being transferred to Salt Lake City, it still took a week for University Hospital doctors to confirm it as a rare paralytic variant of Guillain-Barre Syndrome. A treatment of plasmapheresis, followed by months of physical therapy, has enabled Barbara to regain enough mobility to use a walker rather than a wheel chair. As of this date, we still owe $115,000 on her medical bills.

Then, in 2024, I was diagnosed with an 80% blockage in a coronary artery. In 2011 I underwent a coronary artery bypass graft (CABG) surgery in Oakland. Now I was facing a second, and more risky, CABG surgery. My surgery in November went well. But now we’re faced with medical bills totaling $600,000.

Payments on these medical bills wiped out one of our retirement accounts. At this point, a second retirement account is nearly depleted. After 50 years of working, including military service, this is not how I envisioned retirement. In August, we’ll celebrate our 35th anniversary. With your help we can hopefully remain in our home and enjoy some semblance of retirement. We would be honored, grateful, and blessed for any contribution you can make. God bless you!