Helping a veteran
Donation protected
My father is a unique man. He is a Vietnam Air Force Veteran, an ordained Anglican priest, Commander of the Veterans Honor Guard of the United Cherokee Ani-Yun-Wiya Nation, a proud member of the tribal Drum Team and Elder's Council, and a man who goes out of his way to help people.
Growing up, he was extremely active in the Boyscouts of America in Denver, CO. Our childhoods were punctuated with campouts and summercamps and helping families that were less fortunate than us with food banks and donation boxes. We were regaled with wartime stories of his work under the big jets. He was a weapons mech, and installed weapons underneath the aircraft on the flight line. Once he told us a story of a hanger door malfunction that caused a nuclear warhead to drop and crack...instead of panicking, which is what a normal person would have done, he evacuated the building, then climbed on top of it to wait of Explosive Ordinance Disposal teams to arrive to explain what happened.
My Father is a brave man. He is always the first one to offer help when someone needs it. I spent a summer training with Red Cross Disaster Relief with him so that we could help families when tornadoes wiped away their homes, and fires took away everything they held dear.
We rescued animals, we took in homeless children, we had a very unusual childhood. That's why it's been really hard to be completely helpless to assist him in his time of need.
RECENT DEVELOPMENTS:
My father has been struggling with health issues for the past few years, from heart and kidney issues, to complications with diabetes and COPD. He had a triple bypass open heart surgery about 6 years ago, a defibrillator pacemaker installed 3 years ago. He suffers from Congestive Heart Failure, has recurring wounds on his legs from diabetic nephropathy, and can't walk without assistance now.
After Christmas, he started having trouble walking. He was getting extremely winded and unable to exert himself without strain. On January 17th, 2020 he went into the hospital for a heart catheter. They admitted him to the hospital for Congestive Heart Failure (CHF) He remained in the hospital for 11 days. While there, he contracted an MRSA infection in a wound on his leg and began treatment for it, which included containment isolation. He was discharged to a skilled nursing facility for further rehabilitation after 11 days in the hospital, still on containment Isolation.
After a couple of days in the nursing facility they removed the isolation orders and he seemed to be doing well. after 15 days, there were complications with a new infection in the wound on his leg due to improper wound care and infection containment methods and he returned to the hospital via ambulance. We were told that he coded 3 time on the way to the hospital and had to be brought back.
He spent 8 days in ICU with complications from Septic Shock. Then an additional 6 days in a CCU unit before being released to another skilled nursing facility. His insurance would only cover another 5 days of rehab stay, so after that time he was sent home.
He lives on his own in a trailer in the country. We stayed with him for a few days, and he had home health care nurses coming on a daily basis to check on him, do wound care and physical therapy. Less than 2 weeks after being home, he was rushed to the hospital via ambulance for the 2nd time, and spent 14 days in the hospital where they discovered an artery leaking blood into his stomach and had to perform emergency surgery to fix it.
This is when the Corona Virus lockdowns began, we were no longer allowed to go and see him. He was moved to another Skilled Nursing Rehabilitation facility for an additional 16 days. He hasn't been home in 4 months.
When he was released from this latest facility, they walked me through a 'family education' course which detailed the things he was able to do on his own and the things he needed assistance with. I was under the impression from the staff that he was mostly mobile, and only needed minor supervision.
Once we had him in our care we quickly learned that this was not the case. He requires 24 hour care. He cannot do daily self-care tasks without moderate assistance and most definitely cannot return to living on his own.
WHAT WE NEED HELP WITH:
The family has decided that he will be moving in with my brother so that he can have someone there to help him, but we need some help. My brother has a wife and two children, 13, and 7. The kids are currently sharing a room as the older child has giving up his room for my father temporarily. We're going to be moving him out of his trailer over the next few weeks, and will need a place to put all of his belongings, so we're going to have to renovate a section of my brother's house to do this, and we cannot do it alone.
We are going to have to enclose a carport into a bedroom and build a handicap accessible bathroom for him to get in and out of. My brothers are carpenters, so the labor and construction of this project isn't the issue. We need help with financing the material costs of this project.
My brother has donated a huge chunk of the construction costs to build this room and bathroom, and put a storage shed on the property. The insurance has covered a hospital bed, a walker, and oxygen. We have a huge amount of medical bills for all of the hospital care over the past 4 months, and a list of prescription medications 3 pages long. We're having trouble coming up with the funds for this project with all of the other insurmountable financial strains. We just need to be able to buy the materials to build this room for him. Everything else is manageable.
Any help you can offer is greatly appreciated, even if it's just to share this fundraiser to boost the signal.
Thank you so much for taking the time to read this, and share it. It means a great deal to me and my family.
<3
Growing up, he was extremely active in the Boyscouts of America in Denver, CO. Our childhoods were punctuated with campouts and summercamps and helping families that were less fortunate than us with food banks and donation boxes. We were regaled with wartime stories of his work under the big jets. He was a weapons mech, and installed weapons underneath the aircraft on the flight line. Once he told us a story of a hanger door malfunction that caused a nuclear warhead to drop and crack...instead of panicking, which is what a normal person would have done, he evacuated the building, then climbed on top of it to wait of Explosive Ordinance Disposal teams to arrive to explain what happened.
My Father is a brave man. He is always the first one to offer help when someone needs it. I spent a summer training with Red Cross Disaster Relief with him so that we could help families when tornadoes wiped away their homes, and fires took away everything they held dear.
We rescued animals, we took in homeless children, we had a very unusual childhood. That's why it's been really hard to be completely helpless to assist him in his time of need.
RECENT DEVELOPMENTS:
My father has been struggling with health issues for the past few years, from heart and kidney issues, to complications with diabetes and COPD. He had a triple bypass open heart surgery about 6 years ago, a defibrillator pacemaker installed 3 years ago. He suffers from Congestive Heart Failure, has recurring wounds on his legs from diabetic nephropathy, and can't walk without assistance now.
After Christmas, he started having trouble walking. He was getting extremely winded and unable to exert himself without strain. On January 17th, 2020 he went into the hospital for a heart catheter. They admitted him to the hospital for Congestive Heart Failure (CHF) He remained in the hospital for 11 days. While there, he contracted an MRSA infection in a wound on his leg and began treatment for it, which included containment isolation. He was discharged to a skilled nursing facility for further rehabilitation after 11 days in the hospital, still on containment Isolation.
After a couple of days in the nursing facility they removed the isolation orders and he seemed to be doing well. after 15 days, there were complications with a new infection in the wound on his leg due to improper wound care and infection containment methods and he returned to the hospital via ambulance. We were told that he coded 3 time on the way to the hospital and had to be brought back.
He spent 8 days in ICU with complications from Septic Shock. Then an additional 6 days in a CCU unit before being released to another skilled nursing facility. His insurance would only cover another 5 days of rehab stay, so after that time he was sent home.
He lives on his own in a trailer in the country. We stayed with him for a few days, and he had home health care nurses coming on a daily basis to check on him, do wound care and physical therapy. Less than 2 weeks after being home, he was rushed to the hospital via ambulance for the 2nd time, and spent 14 days in the hospital where they discovered an artery leaking blood into his stomach and had to perform emergency surgery to fix it.
This is when the Corona Virus lockdowns began, we were no longer allowed to go and see him. He was moved to another Skilled Nursing Rehabilitation facility for an additional 16 days. He hasn't been home in 4 months.
When he was released from this latest facility, they walked me through a 'family education' course which detailed the things he was able to do on his own and the things he needed assistance with. I was under the impression from the staff that he was mostly mobile, and only needed minor supervision.
Once we had him in our care we quickly learned that this was not the case. He requires 24 hour care. He cannot do daily self-care tasks without moderate assistance and most definitely cannot return to living on his own.
WHAT WE NEED HELP WITH:
The family has decided that he will be moving in with my brother so that he can have someone there to help him, but we need some help. My brother has a wife and two children, 13, and 7. The kids are currently sharing a room as the older child has giving up his room for my father temporarily. We're going to be moving him out of his trailer over the next few weeks, and will need a place to put all of his belongings, so we're going to have to renovate a section of my brother's house to do this, and we cannot do it alone.
We are going to have to enclose a carport into a bedroom and build a handicap accessible bathroom for him to get in and out of. My brothers are carpenters, so the labor and construction of this project isn't the issue. We need help with financing the material costs of this project.
My brother has donated a huge chunk of the construction costs to build this room and bathroom, and put a storage shed on the property. The insurance has covered a hospital bed, a walker, and oxygen. We have a huge amount of medical bills for all of the hospital care over the past 4 months, and a list of prescription medications 3 pages long. We're having trouble coming up with the funds for this project with all of the other insurmountable financial strains. We just need to be able to buy the materials to build this room for him. Everything else is manageable.
Any help you can offer is greatly appreciated, even if it's just to share this fundraiser to boost the signal.
Thank you so much for taking the time to read this, and share it. It means a great deal to me and my family.
<3
Organizer
Sarah Jordan
Organizer
Boaz, AL
