Hello. My name is Todd Berry, 57 years old. I'm divorced, I have a 25-year-old daughter, and I owned my own financial services company for 15 years. I had to semi-retire and moved to Florida to take care of my very ill parents. Because of 4 years of this, I'm broke.

My gastrointestinal problems started 3 months after my father died. Throughout 2024, I was in the hospital 8 times and finally diagnosed with a severe case of diverticulitis with a perforated large intestine leaking waste into my lower abdomen, fatty liver, and enlarged spleen along with ascites fluid. I was then rushed to emergency surgery where they performed a colectomy, removing 8 inches of my large intestine, then re-routing the rest of the intestine under my abdomen and creating an exposed intestine (stoma) which allows me to defecate into a colostomy bag which I've been using since surgery. They removed my appendix and gall bladder as well to the tune of $54,000, which cleaned me out of the rest of the money I had.

I need the $14,900 for the next surgery which is pending on 8/18/2025. The $14,900 is for a down payment/deposit to the hospital as they will entertain a down payment and create a payment plan for the remaining balance, leaving the remainder of $49,000 to be on a payment program. This is my ONLY option as there are very many friends and family that just can't help. In addition, I'm too young to get social security and Medicare. This last surgery is a matter of life or death.

In closing, I'm sorry to be so verbose. The upcoming and final surgery will be the following:

1. Colorectal surgery re-connecting the remaining large intestine, closure of the stoma (no need for colostomy bags any further).

2. The infected left side of the diverticulitis was removed in the last surgery but now the right side has an infection.

3. A shunt to be inserted helping to release the ascites fluid. Without this, I would have 6 months to live.

4. A liver re-route to remove scar tissue as I'm slowly developing non-alcoholic cirrhosis of the liver.