This is not an easy thing for our family to do, we have never asked for more than anything but prayers, but the time has come for us to ask for more help. Our son Bo has been struggling with unexplained weight loss, nausea, vomiting, diarrhea, fatigue and pure exhaustion for the past year. He has lost close to 100lbs, he has gone from 240lbs to 148lbs and not in a good way.

He has been to his doctor repeatedly without getting any answers, he has been told to “just eat more”, “you must have a high metabolism”, “your active job just burns the calories” and “there is nothing wrong with you”. He finally had an endoscopy back in February 2021 and they said he had an ulcer and prescribed meds for that, but he continued to get worse. Again repeated phone calls and trips to the doctors still leading to no answers. A couple of weeks ago as he was dropping his son off before work he could barely walk, cold sweats and was in severe abdominal pain. Jeff drove him to the hospital where he was admitted and a CT Scan of his abdomen was done as well as another endoscopy. It was then that we finally got a diagnosis, Bo was diagnosed with Wilkie's syndrome or SMA Syndrome  which is a rare cause of duodenal obstruction that can easily be missed at clinical practice. It is characterized by nausea, abdominal pain and vomitting. It usually affects young adults, and it's caused by a low aortomesenteric angle resulting in vascular compression of the duodenum.

The lower ⅓ of his lower intestines are being compressed, not allowing anything to pass through. Here is a link to it if anyone is interested in reading up on it, https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4478323/.

Bo is severely malnourished due to this and because his body isn’t absorbing any nutrients. He is having a PICC line inserted June 1, 2021 to start giving him some nutrients and he is scheduled for surgery June 29, 2021. This is a major surgery and will require him to be off work for a minimum of 6 weeks. He is currently doing his best to continue working but some days the pain and nausea and vomiting are too much and he has to go home.

Bo is fortunately still covered under Jeff’s insurance but unfortunately he does not have any benefits where he is working, he has no paid time off or paid family medical leave. Bo is the main breadwinner for his family and is struggling with the fact that he will be without any source of income for some time as well as already having shortened paychecks for having to go home early. He has begged and pleaded with the doctors to find a way to let him come back to work sooner and have told him this is a very big surgery and his body will need this time to recover. Jeff’s insurance will cover a lot of this, but he will still have co-pays, medications and their everyday living expenses.

Most of you know Bo and his fiancee Peyton have two little ones, Brantley who is 4 years old and Stevie who is 8 months old. Bo is a son, brother, daddy and fiance who has tried endlessly to work through this. We are asking for any help that can get him through this time. If anything at all please pray for him as he deals with this, prayers for healing and peace of mind knowing his family will be taken care of while he heals. Please feel free to share this to help spread the word!!

From the bottom of our hearts, THANK YOU!!!