Wyatt Strong
Donation protected
The challenges for our family began just two years ago.. It first started with the sudden onset of illness with my father in law and the same week something attacked Wyatt. A short 35 days later while Wyatt was fighting to become stronger we suddenly lost his father. Our family has endured such pain and loss all while fighting to find out what was wrong with Wyatt.
After what seemed like forever Wyatt was a patient at Mayo Hospital in Scottsdale when he was diagnosed with an auto-immune disease that has attacked his brain. They call it Cerebellar Syndrome. The doctors have no explanation as to why or what has caused this. They actually have no accurate diagnosis and continue to disagree with what it is and what treatment will best suit his symptoms. We have be told that they are unable to identify the antibodies that have caused his illness and may never identify them.
After his unexplained brain bleed over a year ago he now requires 24/7 care and which has become a full time job.
Below we have created a calendar that you can join and sign up to volunteer for coverage.
https://my.lotsahelpinghands.com/community/wyattodenstrong
To date, Wyatt has undergone every test known to rule out anything from auto-immune diseases, cancers, exposure and even genomic testing. We still have no answers. Wyatt has also gone through very extensive treatments in hopes that one of them would slow down the progression of this illness. He suffers daily with chronic pain, neuropathy in all extremities, headaches and episodes. When he is having an episode he presents like he is having a stroke. He has become disoriented unable to communicate times, slurring his words and facial droop age. At times and most recently he has moments where he does not recognize any of us. It is heartbreaking to witness the fear he has gone through. He has been plagued by these spells for over a year. The unfortunate part of all of this is he has lost all of his independence and the ability to do the things he loves..fishing, hunting and working the fire service.
I'm telling you this so that you may all have a better understanding of his circumstances . Some of you reading this may know him personally or you may not. Wyatt was a deputy fire chief at the time of his retirement, he was forced to retire due to his illness. He served his community for over 30 years in that career.
Wyatt has always put his crew, friends and his family first. He has never experienced a true vacation, he was always on call. His job and love for his people were always first on his mind.
He has spent quite literally his entire life caring for others and now the coin has flipped...Now it's our turn to love and care for Wyatt.
The most recent kick in the gut is that Wyatt is considered to be in the "Grey Area" when it comes to receiving ANY assistance from the agencies that are meant to help citizens in these circumstances. You see Wyatt is only 53, not old enough for Medicare. Makes "Too Much" money, even though it does not cover his monthly cost of living. You can only imagine what his medical bills are. He has to pay Cobra $$$$ that is ridiculous all on it's own because he has to have insurance to be treated. He can't go to a facility that is equipped to care for him because he is not on Medicare and contractual insurance does not pay that facilities enough money. Are you starting to see a pattern??? It's is literally all about the might "Green" how much you have, how much you don't have and how much you make. You have to make less than $1400 per month to qualify. There is an organization here in Arizona ALTCS that I have reached out to get assistance and they cannot help us.
So we purchased a home a year ago big enough to have Wyatt live with us. We had it remodeled so that if would be safe for Wyatt he could live here and we could help him. Unfortunately Wyatt has digressed so quickly that we have to have help daily. We no longer can do this by-ourselves. He does not have coverage that will financially cover the expense of a caregiver so it has been private pay unto this point. Wyatt has used all of his savings and what he had for retirement to pay medical expenses. He is now out of money and we no longer have a caregiver due to the expense along with the uncertainty of hospital stays. Wyatt has spent more time in the hospital than at home and now we have hospice involved. This is not end of life this is comfort care. The doctors cannot give him relief so now the experts have come in to help us. This is still very expensive and requires more than what his insurance is able to pay.
Please share this and help as you can. We know that God is good and he will be by us on this journey.
Thank You,
The Oden Family
After what seemed like forever Wyatt was a patient at Mayo Hospital in Scottsdale when he was diagnosed with an auto-immune disease that has attacked his brain. They call it Cerebellar Syndrome. The doctors have no explanation as to why or what has caused this. They actually have no accurate diagnosis and continue to disagree with what it is and what treatment will best suit his symptoms. We have be told that they are unable to identify the antibodies that have caused his illness and may never identify them.
After his unexplained brain bleed over a year ago he now requires 24/7 care and which has become a full time job.
Below we have created a calendar that you can join and sign up to volunteer for coverage.
https://my.lotsahelpinghands.com/community/wyattodenstrong
To date, Wyatt has undergone every test known to rule out anything from auto-immune diseases, cancers, exposure and even genomic testing. We still have no answers. Wyatt has also gone through very extensive treatments in hopes that one of them would slow down the progression of this illness. He suffers daily with chronic pain, neuropathy in all extremities, headaches and episodes. When he is having an episode he presents like he is having a stroke. He has become disoriented unable to communicate times, slurring his words and facial droop age. At times and most recently he has moments where he does not recognize any of us. It is heartbreaking to witness the fear he has gone through. He has been plagued by these spells for over a year. The unfortunate part of all of this is he has lost all of his independence and the ability to do the things he loves..fishing, hunting and working the fire service.
I'm telling you this so that you may all have a better understanding of his circumstances . Some of you reading this may know him personally or you may not. Wyatt was a deputy fire chief at the time of his retirement, he was forced to retire due to his illness. He served his community for over 30 years in that career.
Wyatt has always put his crew, friends and his family first. He has never experienced a true vacation, he was always on call. His job and love for his people were always first on his mind.
He has spent quite literally his entire life caring for others and now the coin has flipped...Now it's our turn to love and care for Wyatt.
The most recent kick in the gut is that Wyatt is considered to be in the "Grey Area" when it comes to receiving ANY assistance from the agencies that are meant to help citizens in these circumstances. You see Wyatt is only 53, not old enough for Medicare. Makes "Too Much" money, even though it does not cover his monthly cost of living. You can only imagine what his medical bills are. He has to pay Cobra $$$$ that is ridiculous all on it's own because he has to have insurance to be treated. He can't go to a facility that is equipped to care for him because he is not on Medicare and contractual insurance does not pay that facilities enough money. Are you starting to see a pattern??? It's is literally all about the might "Green" how much you have, how much you don't have and how much you make. You have to make less than $1400 per month to qualify. There is an organization here in Arizona ALTCS that I have reached out to get assistance and they cannot help us.
So we purchased a home a year ago big enough to have Wyatt live with us. We had it remodeled so that if would be safe for Wyatt he could live here and we could help him. Unfortunately Wyatt has digressed so quickly that we have to have help daily. We no longer can do this by-ourselves. He does not have coverage that will financially cover the expense of a caregiver so it has been private pay unto this point. Wyatt has used all of his savings and what he had for retirement to pay medical expenses. He is now out of money and we no longer have a caregiver due to the expense along with the uncertainty of hospital stays. Wyatt has spent more time in the hospital than at home and now we have hospice involved. This is not end of life this is comfort care. The doctors cannot give him relief so now the experts have come in to help us. This is still very expensive and requires more than what his insurance is able to pay.
Please share this and help as you can. We know that God is good and he will be by us on this journey.
Thank You,
The Oden Family
Organizer
Sabrina Oden
Organizer
Phoenix, AZ