Jeremy & Lisa Call for Aid!

Man, y'all, June has been a wild ride, both for the entire country and for our little family. The first week of June, Jeremy and I finally got Covid and while we both had mild symptoms, Jeremy is laid off and wasn't able to work out at the shop (in addition to the fact that we are still fighting with unemployment since we've been told by his union rep that he should be able to collect during the summer). OK, no big deal, I work freelance gigs so we figure we'll just pinch pennies a bit while we're waiting for those invoices to get paid, right? We're still navigating our budget with Harley's expenses, but we think we have a handle on it. Whelp, on Wednesday things got more complicated. Jeremy was getting ready to head out and camp and work the Forged Foam booth at Geddon when he started to complain of pain in his stomach. He went and rested a bit while I started to load the car for him in case he felt better later and wanted to head out. Around 3 he was still in mild pain so rather than head to an event not feeling 100%, we went to convenient care where a truly sadistic doctor pressed on Jeremy and moved what he originally stated as a 2-3 on the pain scale to a 7-8. Nice. Convenient care can't do scans or anything, but the doc said that pain like this could be any number of pretty bad things so we should probably go to the ER. We went home for a bit so we could see if it went away on its own and by 7, Jeremy texted me from the bedroom "I think it's time to go, the baby is ready," so at least he still had his sense of humor. We get to the ER and he now has a fever of ~101 (no fever at the doctor earlier) and we get put in a "room" to await a scan. Around 11:30 the scan results show that Jeremy has a small perforation in his colon due to diverticulitis. His fever is 104 and they start fluids and IV antibiotics. At around 3:30 am he gets admitted and put in a room. Thursday we learn that if this hole doesn't heal with the antibiotics, he will need emergency surgery to take out the bad bit of colon and he'd be sent home with the worst parting gift: a colostomy bag. We wait. Friday morning he's looking good, fever is down, and surgery is looking less likely. Continue to push antibiotics and wait and see. He gets to have clear liquids; he is a happy but exhausted boy. Saturday morning he's told he can go off the IV fluids and have soft food and he might get to be discharged. By 8 pm Saturday, he's back at home! Hooray! Here we are on Monday morning and other than being extremely tired (being woken up every 2 hours by nurses will do that to you!), Jeremy is feeling much better and might even be back to helping at the shop on Wednesday!

We are so thankful he didn't need surgery because that would have meant an additional 7-10 days in the hospital and 3-6 months with a poop bag and then another surgery. We are blessed to have very good insurance so his stay will not completely break the bank but with everything up in the air with his lay off and missing time with Covid and our expenses with our pets, we're hoping to see if we can keep our heads above water and not max out credit cards for hospital bills and medications so we are asking if our friends can help us with our bills a bit. I'm waiting to see if a few invoices can get bumped to be paid early but at this point, having a little help will help keep me from stressing. If you can, anything would help. Based on our insurance benefits booklet, the ER visit and hospital stay will run us ~$1,800, and that's on top of about 2 weeks of missed work this month. If you can, please donate here (or contact us). Or, if you've been interested in a Crass Stitching piece for Christmas (let's be realistic about my schedule), holler at me.

We love you and thank you for everything. <3