Hey all,

I never thought I'd be making a GoFundMe, but here we are!

Just to catch some of you up, I have been in Thailand the last 6 years teaching English and loving it. I got married this year to my wife, Iris, who is also a teacher from China. We live together with our cat, Luna, in Bangkok.

We were looking forward to taking our honeymoon this July during the school holiday. A few days before our trip I started vomiting and came down with Covid. This was followed by severe abdominal pain. After checking into a hospital, it was found that the pain was due to pancreatitis caused by gallstones from my gallbladder.

Over the next 2 weeks, I was on constant IV, antibiotics, had many blood tests and CT scans. My condition significantly worsened 2 times. I had lost a lot of blood due to internal bleeding. When the pain continued to be extreme, Iris decided we needed to change hospitals. What a great honeymoon for us! (Obviously we had to cancel our flights, hotels, cars, etc, last minute which we had to eat the cost of)

Within 17 hours of arriving at the new hospital, I had been transferred 5 units of blood (about 50% of my supply) and was undergoing emergency surgery. They had discovered I had an aneurysm in my spleen which was the reason for my internal bleeding. While the surgery was successful, I managed to lose even more blood and needed another 1-2 units transferred. Post surgery I spent a night in ICU getting plasma, antibiotics and IV. At this point I already felt loads better.

I was released to a normal hospital room the following day, yesterday. Today I feel great but still have a long road to recovery. As of now over half of the blood in my body isn't mine, which can be stressful on the liver. I also have a tube installed in my abdomen to keep draining the pancreatic fluid and remaining blood/blood clot from my abdomen. In a week or so I will need another CT scan to check on my pancreas and the general state of my abdomen. A few months from now I will need to remove my gallbladder to prevent a situation like this from happening again as my pancreas likely could not handle this again.

I have created this GoFundMe as the hospital bill has gotten quite high. I have always been good at saving money but this surprise was an expensive one.

After insurance coverage, as of now, we have paid about $40,000 USD. I expect the upcoming gallbladder surgery and few months of recovery to add another $10-20,000 to this. The insurance I had was helpful but, as you can see, still left a lot for me and Iris to cover.

If any of you find your self in a position to help me out I would be very thankful. As for me, I am happy to be alive! It was a close call there for a minute. I am feeling well and looking forward to a full recovery (though, I will have to follow a pretty strict diet for the rest of my life).

Love to all and I hope everyone is doing well!

-Scott