Ongoing Expenses of Caregiving at Home

Dear Friends, Supporters and New Readers,

The immediately following paragraphs describe the circumstances at the time this GoFundMe effort was launched last spring. The updates that follow, should you continue to read them, describe events over the following months, including my own diagnosis and treatment for pancreatic cancer, one that has affected my ability to be Jacqui's primary caregiver.

We are still very much in need of financial support until I am able to return to work.

This week has brought some good news, as a PET scan reveals that my cancerous masses continue to shrink under chemotherapy. Initially I was informed that my primary tumor was inoperable. However, my favorable response to chemotherapy makes surgery possible. I have an upcoming consultation about this shortly after the first of the year.

Our gratitude is deep and plentiful, but our financial resources are not. If you or anyone you know can help, we would be immensely appreciative. Please share this GoFundMe appeal.

Thank you

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On the morning of February 23d (my birthday), Jacqui, my wife of 36 years, was taken to the emergency department by paramedics, suffering from very low blood pressure, respiratory distress and kidney failure. She was in septic shock and was very, very ill. Stabilized and placed on a ventilator, she was admitted to the ICU and remained on the ventilator for the next two weeks. She had an emergency procedure to place a stent in her left kidney, and she gradually improved. Three weeks later, I brought her home, with oxygen, which was just removed yesterday. As she was being readied to return home, her left femur was accidentally fractured during placement in a lift to facilitate transfer from her hospital bed into her power wheelchair. The fracture was only discovered the next morning, when her thigh showed signs of swelling. I took her back to emergency where the orthopedist placed her left leg in a long brace to stabilize that leg. She has not been able to stand or walk since 2016, so she spends most of her time confined to a home hospital bed. The long-term use of steroid infusions to treat MS flare-ups over the years has resulted in severe osteoporosis, and her bone is very fragile.

Today Jacqui is resting at home, as seen in the attached photo. My name is Steven Harvey Hirsch, and I am Jacqui's husband and primary caregiver.

Jacqui was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis (MS) almost four decades ago. Early on, you might never have suspected that anything was wrong. She worked at Cornell University Medical Center, and when we were courting, she led me on Sunday walking tours of New York City as she showed me the place she called home. I talked her into her first trip to California by inviting her to go backpacking down the grand canyon of the Tuolumne River in the high country of Yosemite National Park. We married in 1996 and spent part of our honeymoon in the rainforest of Rwanda in the company of mountain gorillas.

In 1988, she gave birth to our first son, Rudy, and a few months later we moved to Irvine, California, where we still live today. We welcomed our second son, Jonah, a California native, in 1988. Jacqui was a fairly active young mother with both boys, joining with a wonderful group of moms of infants for stroller walks. But her MS began to progress and as our sons grew into elementary schoolers, Jacqui would have to carefully budget her energy output, because MS-related fatigue would hit her most afternoons.

As relapsing-remitting MS progressed into secondary progressive MS, Jacqui's ability to stand and walk diminished, and we moved from a two-story condo to a single-story house. On Christmas night of 2015, osteoporosis caused Jacqui's first hip fracture, and she ended up in a board and care home for many weeks. That experience led me to seek financial assistance by signing onto GoFundMe. We received enough support to get us through that very difficult time, for which we were very grateful.

Since then, we downsized from a single-family home into a wheelchair-accessible mobile home and we are very grateful for being able to manage things from there.

However, much as I hate to ask for additional help, I need to do so at this time because of the expenses associated with this most recent hospitalization and follow-up care. We are seeking to raise about $8,000.

Thank you for reading this far. If you are able to contribute anything at all, we will be very grateful. Please share this request for assistance with anyone you think might be able to help us.

Sincerely,

Steven