Help The Lansdown family (Bill and Maree)
I am proud to say that I am friends with Bill and Maree and have known them for 39 years since our school days. I know if I was in this predicament that Maree and Bill would try to help me out so I have started this page to try to help them out by collecting donations.
Bill Lansdown owned and operated Bill Lansdown Pest Control since 2012 and worked in the Somerset and Lockyer Valley and surrounding areas. This was Bill's fulltime job while his wife Maree works as a nurse in Ipswich. Bill was very community orientated and would support local organizations through donations, sponsorship or free pest control services. Nothing was too much trouble and he would always put his hand up to help when he could.
What happened?
In about August 2020 Bill became unwell and started to have stroke like episodes followed by seizures. This became worse and in December 2020 and Bill was transferred from St Andrews ICU to the Wesley ICU and placed in an induced coma whilst the medical staff tried to get his seizures under control.
It was found that Bill was suffering from a rare auto immune disorder called Primary Central Nervous System Vasculitis.
Primary CNS vasculitis is an uncommon disorder of unknown cause that is restricted to brain and spinal cord. The median age of onset is 50 years. The neurological manifestations are diverse, but generally consist of headache, altered cognition, focal weakness, or strokes.
In January 2021 still at the Wesley hospital the prognosis for Bill was not good due to the strokes and seizures he had been exposed to even whilst in an induced coma. Once Bill was slowly woken from the coma it was obvious that significant damage had been done and he was no longer able to eat (chew, swallow etc), talk or walk and had paralysis on the right side of his body. This meant that he would require 24/7 care if he was even able to make it through the next couple of days or weeks.
If you know Bill you will know that he is stubborn and despite the adversity he was faced with he displayed this stubbornness in committing to his rehabilitation plan and making very slow progress towards recovering enough to be able to do some of the small things we take for granted like feeding himself and even having a cup of coffee.
Bill was kept in the Wesley until March 2021 when he was transferred to The Ipswich General hospital's Stroke rehabilitation ward.
Bill has improved significantly from the January prognosis to the point that he is now eating small amounts of normal food, and can say a couple of words, but he still requires 24/7 nursing care.
Bill is now reaching the end of his intense phase of rehabilitation but is unable to come home as the family awaits NDIS home assessment to determine what alterations need to be made to the home environment to make it suitable to accommodate Bill safely. This process is not fast due to a variety of reasons and while NDIS covers some alterations, additional works will still need to be done.
As Bill reaches the end of the need to be in hospital, he needs to either go to different accommodation or stay at Ipswich hospital until home is able to be made safe. Staying at the hospital will incur a daily fee after Bill is medically discharged but unable to leave without an alternative safe place to go that can provide the 24/7 care that he needs.
What treatments will be required that we know of?
Bill will continue to need ongoing 24/7 care.
Ongoing Chemotherapy will be required to treat the Primary CNS Vasculitis for the rest of his life.
He will require ongoing physiotherapy, speech therapy and occupational therapy, this will all be required to help improve his abilities which have been damaged from the strokes and seizures with the major focus being for him to walk and talk again one day.
He will need some form of communication device as currently he has only re-learnt to say a few words, being yes and no and a few hand gestures.
For your information: Research suggests that maintenance therapy with an immunosuppressant combined with glucocorticoids lead to the best long-term clinical and functional outcomes in patients with primary central nervous system vasculitis after having achieved remission with either glucocorticoids alone or in combination with another immunosuppressant.
These funds are needed ASAP
These funds are needed as quickly as possible to help Maree pay for:
1. Bills accommodation and care costs until renovations on the family home can be completed and Bill is able to return to his family home.
2. Additional home renovations that will be required so that the family home can be made safe and comfortable for Bill and his ongoing care requirements.
How will these donation help the Lansdowns?
These donations will assist Maree to pay the expenses in providing Bill with 24/7 care whilst waiting for NDIS assistance. As you would understand that Maree is now trying to pay for everything around the home plus more, which once was covered by 2 incomes.
Please help me pay it forward, I know Maree and Bill would do the same for all their friends, family and community if the roles were reversed.
Other ways people can help?
Maree will need to renovate the family home and do some landscaping to make it wheelchair friendly and make a particular space in the home for Bill to predominantly live in and be cared for, but also allow him to interact with friends and participate in family activities..
Any tradies who can donate their time, materials or even advise would also be a great help eg concreters, plumbers, landscapers and so on.
How urgent is this situation you may be wondering?
This situation is urgent as it will be some time before Maree knows exactly what she must do and what assistance she is likely to receive from NDIS. Once an assessment has been done on the family home Maree will need to get quotes for the required work before she can even engage someone to do the works and then their will be the wait for when these works can commence.
In the meantime, I would like to raise some monetary donations for Maree to use in paying for Bill’s 24/7 care until he can safely return home.