Please Help Darcy

Darcy Overland has been a dear friend of mine for almost 10 years. In the time that I have known him, Darcy has been very involved with his local community. He has volunteered with the local Harvest Festival and helped to raise donations for our local food bank. He's been a vocal supporter of the LGBTQ community as well. Recently I found out how sick Darcy is and I hope you can help him.

Darcy was diagnosed with type 1 diabetes (insulin-dependent) in 1997. Darcy became very sick with undiagnosed celiac disease in 2004, and this caused his blood sugar to be erratic. It was impossible to regulate his blood sugar levels, which caused serious, long-term damage to Darcy's body. Once armed with a clear diagnosis and on a gluten-free diet, Darcy was able to manage his Celiac and Diabetic conditions.

However, the damage from the diabetic spiral would cause Darcy to become visually impaired (legally blind). At this point, he had surgeries to rescue what they could of his vision. After the surgeries, Darcy was left with no central vision in his left eye, just peripheral. In his right eye, they were able to save much more of his vision. His right eye had a visual acuity of CF6, (Count Fingers 6 feet), which means he can see the eye chart in a test, but nothing on it.

During the next few years (2008), Darcy found gainful employment working as a call center rep for a telecommunications company. Sadly, he was unemployed again in 2009 after his call center permanently closed its doors. He was unable to find stable employment for the next two years, before being hired at another telecommunications company as a call center rep in 2011. He has been with them ever since.

Darcy’s eyesight continued to degrade slowly. In 2015 he started to feel the effects of Osteoporosis, (soft bones), thanks to his Celiac Disease. In August 2015, he fell down the stairs to his apartment and fractured his heel bone. Due to the lack of nerve sensation, he thought the fracture was merely a sprain and treated it accordingly. Three months later, while attending a Halloween dance, he fully shattered the already fractured heel bone, causing his Achilles tendon to rip bone fragments halfway up his calf. Throughout three separate surgeries around the holiday season of 2015/2016, doctors managed to save his foot. However, due to the massive damage caused by the ripping of the Achilles tendon, he now has to wear a brace on his lower right leg and foot.

For the next three years, Darcy struggled with feeling constantly ill and tired. In 2019 they started medicating him for Kidney Disease as a result of his diabetes. He was on the Renal Diet as part of the treatment. His kidneys continued to deteriorate until he went into kidney failure and started a regimen of Peritoneal Dialysis on April 19th, 2020. Four times a day Darcy must drain old fluid out of his abdomen and replace it with two litres of dialysis fluid. This eases the strain on his kidneys as they work to clean out the toxins in his body.

In February of 2022, Darcy began to suffer from pink eye and was prescribed Erythromycin as a treatment. Within hours his eye attempted to swell out of his head, due to an allergic reaction to the antibiotic. Returning to the ophthalmologist, it was determined that the affected tissue needed to be removed. The damaged tissue in his left eye was successfully removed, but sadly Darcy was left completely blind in his left eye. They were able to save his right eye.

Darcy’s body had already suffered a lot of nerve damage and in April 2022, he contracted a diabetic foot ulcer in the bottom of the heel of his left foot. He sought treatment at the hospital and was sent home with antibiotics. Unfortunately, the antibiotics were ineffective. Darcy returned to the hospital several times in an attempt to treat the ulcer, but with no success.

Seeking a second opinion as to how to treat the ulcer at Toronto General Hospital, intravenous Gravol, due to ongoing nausea, was delivered too quickly and caused a grand mal seizure. This resulted in the entire victoria day weekend being focused on why the seizure occurred and as a result, Darcy’s foot was not treated for another six days.

Darcy was given another prescription and a referral to the infectious disease clinic at his local hospital. After three weeks, the specialist cleared him explaining the wound was no longer septic and would heal with monitoring and home care. PSWs visited daily to bandage and clean the wound. On August 12, 2022, the home care nurse advised him that the ulcer was starting to smell of rot and was becoming septic. On August 15, 2022, Darcy returned to the hospital for new antibiotics and assistance with the wound.

Darcy was admitted immediately for what became an extensive hospital stay. Doctors attempted to treat the ulcer with stronger antibiotics hoping to see improvement. September 9th, Darcy was referred to a vascular surgeon who declared that the wound was no longer treatable and that the foot must be amputated mid-way between the ankle and knee. He was kept in the hospital while his prosthetic foot was designed. He was doing rehabilitation exercises to keep his legs and arms strong so that when he received the prosthetic, he could begin using it immediately.

In early October 2022, he finally received his prosthetic leg. He was in rehabilitation for 30 days until November 2nd, 2022. Darcy was eager and able to return to work. His job was still awaiting his return. However, when Darcy was released from the hospital, he had what was thought to be a hangnail infection on the ring finger of his right hand. It turned out not to be an infection but, the blood vessels in his fingers dying due to his Diabetes. The necrosis spread rapidly and affected his index, middle and ring finger, as well as the palm and most of the back of the hand.

The necrotic veins had also spread to the left hand, cutting off circulation to the middle and index fingers. The only solution offered so far was to wait until the infection finished spreading and then amputate the affected area. On the right hand, this means amputating everything but the thumb and possibly the pinky, as well as the two fingers on his left hand. Due to the amount of loss to his hands and his seriously diminished sight, Darcy can no longer function in his workplace.

Presently, Darcy’s employment opportunities are grim and his health is not good enough to allow him to pursue further employment elsewhere for the foreseeable future. At this point, it also seems unlikely that Darcy will be able to return home to live independently and instead faces the almost certainty of living in a long-term care facility.

His mental health has rapidly declined in the last year and he has been unable to pursue assistance with this while trying to work and deal with his seriously declining health. He has bouts of anxiety followed by depression that cause him great stress and suffering. Any donations made to Darcy would be used for day-to-day living, medical costs and transportation costs.