Helping out the Hugheys— beloved community pillars

In mid-December of 2024, Jon Hughey injured his back as he tried to catch a patient from falling into his wheelchair. This action resulted in an acute injury to his low back (L5, S1 area) that aggravated a previous injury. As a result, Jon was left in severe pain and unable to work. For the next 8 weeks, Jon met with physicians and participated in physical therapy sessions. Unfortunately, this did not help his pain.

Then, in mid-February, he had an unsuccessful epidural injection. He was only able to have some relief for about 48 hours. Afterwards, the pain came rushing back and even intensified. Consequently, since he was unable to walk or drive a vehicle, he ended up being forced to leave his position as an x-ray technician.

At this point, not only was Jon unemployed, but he had been in extreme pain for nearly three months, which made him unable to have restful sleep. All of these issues triggered a relapse of his AFib issues (which hadn't been causing issues for nearly a decade). On February 28, Jon went in for his pre-surgical testing and learned that his pulse was 146 bpm and he was in AFib. His heart rate shot down to 60 bpm, and immediately back up over 140 again. He was admitted to the ER, and after over 24 hours there, was transferred to a progressive care unit for close observation and administration of medication to hopefully get his heart back in rhythm.

This process was also unsuccessful (likely because he had unknowingly been in AFib for months at that point), so on March 4, Jon's cardiologist administered 2 cardioversions, but was unable to get his heart in proper rhythm. So, he was given blood thinners and sent home to rest. He was supposed to undergo a laminectomy to repair the spinal stenosis in his low spine on March 10, but due to the cardioversions, the cardiologist said he is at much higher risk of stroke and/or death. Therefore, he needs to wait at least 3 - 4 weeks to try to have the spine surgery, and once he is healed from that, he will need an ablation to attempt to improve his heart function.

In the meantime, Jon is hurting even worse, unable to take NSAIDs to help with inflammation and pain, and contracted some sort of illness (possibly an upper respiratory infection?) while at the hospital. It will be a minimum of at least 3 months before he is able to walk or drive normally and maybe even longer before his heart is fully functioning again.

This has been an incredibly challenging time for Jon, Angel, and their family. Not only have they been impacted emotionally, but the medical expenses and loss of pay have tremendously impacted their overall wellbeing.

They are anticipating many thousands of dollars in medical expenses from all of the heart and back procedures, as well as Jon's hospital stays. Any assistance would be greatly appreciated.