Help Us Overcome Medical and Financial Hurdles

Hi Everyone. First, I want to thank you for all your prayers. I could not have done this without God. I am not good at public speaking, so please bear with me. I thought I would explain my story to everyone because my husband and I are having to reach out for help. Who knew turning 45 and him 44 would be such a challenge for us both.

I had been diagnosed with Eosinophilic Asthma a year earlier. I had close to a dozen trips to the ER with blood pressure bottoming out and fighting extremely hard to breathe. I was having an asthma attack which they called an exacerbation. The ER doctors first said I had moderate asthma and gave me inhalers to use on the first couple of visits. After that, they quickly jumped me to severe chronic asthma and I was given a nebulizer by my breathing doctor (Pulmonologist Dr. Oliver). I use it 4 times a day and as needed through the night if I have trouble.

I had surgery on April 21st at Sentara Martha Jefferson for the gastric sleeve by Dr. Snow. They were going to take care of a hernia also and some scar tissue that had formed from my ovarian cancer. After the surgery, I had a tightness in my chest. They gave me a breathing treatment and put me in my room for observation. On Tuesday, I was scheduled to go home like most patients do, but they kept me as they were still concerned about my breathing. On Wednesday around 1 pm, I really had trouble breathing, my lips turned blue, and I was rushed into ICU as I found out that I had aspiration pneumonia in one lung and pneumonia in the other lung. I was put under sedation because efforts the med surge and then ICU did everything they could do. I was put on a ventilator helping me breathe, which means a fairly large tube was put down my throat. I was in the ICU for over a week as they saw very slow progress. Finally, after a week, they had no choice but to cut back on the sedation and see how well my lungs were doing. The tube was removed, and I struggled hard to breathe but fought very hard as they kept by my side. I continued on oxygen and was told I would have to go through rehab to walk. I couldn't even pick up my phone to call my husband. So, each day my hands get a tad stronger. I am having a friend type this for me as I wish I was, but I am not. As I continue to fight to get better and go through rehab, I want each and every one of you to know that I love you and I am so thankful for all the thoughts and prayers. I could not have done this without all those prayers and God's healing touch.

My husband Jonathan was diagnosed with an acute kidney injury back in February. His back started hurting really bad and after a trip to the doctor, he found out that his kidney levels (creatinine) were severely down. So he was set up with a urologist which was set for a month away. In that time, Jonathan got worse, getting weak, complaining of severe back pain, and a couple of trips to the ER. They found out that he had a couple of stones and they might have to be blasted using a high decibel sound. So they set up another appointment for that, but because of the snowfall, the appointment got canceled and moved way up, and Jonathan had to tough it out by straining on the bathroom floor to get them out. Again, it made him very weak. Thinking that it was all over, but it was just the beginning. A few weeks later, Jonathan let out 30+ stones and we saved them for urology to do testing. Urology keeps sending him to have scans, ultrasounds, and now an MRI. This past Sunday, Jonathan was visiting me in the ICU when he got up to use the restroom. He came back in and looked quite pale. He had let out another stone and this one was really huge. He said he hit his knees on the bathroom floor and had to cover his mouth to muffle the screaming. With Jonathan's kidney function making him weak, this is causing him to be out of work, so we are asking if you all could help us out with any type of donation. We did want to make this a last case scenario as we always like helping folks and not really on the end asking for it. We are worried about our rent, insurance, power bill, cell phones, etc. We have plenty of food as I am on a liquid diet and Jonathan's taste buds are so off due to his kidneys.