Hi my name is Elizabeth and I am Melissa (Missy) DeWitt Dunn’s sister.

On Monday April 11th Missy was transported via ambulance from her apartment to West Branch hospital emergency room. When my mom (Cathie DeWitt) and I arrived there the doctor advised us that my sister was very, very sick. We were told she had sepsis. That night she was transferred to a hospital in Saginaw with an ICU, where she’d receive the high level care she desperately needed.

That night the doctor called and told me Missy also had encephalitis, an infection and swelling in her brain.

Her medical care team has worked hard to find the source of the original infection without much luck. While they run test after test they keep finding more things wrong with her body. Her heart valve that was replaced nearly 7 years ago is having issues. They’ve identified problems with her kidneys and now her stomach as well.

She is currently on a ventilator and is sedated. The goal is to get her breathing stabilized and get her off the ventilator so they can run more tests, particularly on her heart. She has received high dose antibiotics and antivirals to treat the sepsis. 

Missy has a long road to recovery ahead of her. She has bills coming due and will have more coming up soon. Missy has wonderful neighbors who have been helping us figure this all out. We need to make sure her housing related costs are taken care of first and foremost so that she won’t have to worry about that. At this point we’re still putting all the pieces together to figure out how much she needs, so we may adjust the goal as we go along.

Once we have Missy’s immediate financial needs met some funds may be used for the family’s travel related expenses. As you can imagine, driving back and forth from the hospital so often gets expensive.

Missy is a loving mother to the sweetest 7 (almost 8) year old boy. We want to do everything we can to make this very difficult situation less burdensome for her family.

Our whole family is truly grateful for the outpouring of love and support we’ve received. If we don’t respond to messages please understand how overwhelming this all is for us. Even if we aren’t able to reply, just know we see you and we appreciate you.