Medical Emergency's Have Caused Me To Swallow Pride

April 10th, 2024, will go down as the worst day of my life. My name is Jack Porter, and my wife Nancy asked me to go to Kaiser with her for an urgent care appointment because she wasn’t feeling well. She was driving since I am still healing over all of my 2023 medical issues, and we were talking about usual married stuff when, all of a sudden, she collapsed on top of me just outside of Madera Ranchos. We were driving sixty-five miles per hour, and I was able to stop the car safely from the passenger side. I called 911 to get an ambulance to us when she stopped breathing. Because of my limitations from medical issues, my wife died in my arms. Thank God the ambulance found us extremely fast. I am probably the only person in Madera who is grateful for the Madera Hospital closing because that put Pistoresui Ambulance in the right spot to save my wife and get her breathing again.|

The Saint Agnes Emergency Room got her heart rhythm stabilized, and the Intensive Care Unit worked on Nancy for the next ten days to get her breathing on her own. I can not tell you how grateful I am to everyone at Saint Agnes for bringing my wife back. Now, she is back in the care of Kaiser Permanente in one of their rehabilitation facilities in Fresno. Doctors think she will make a full recovery and have told us that the MRIs and CAT scans do not show any brain damage. However, she is dealing with some memory loss that she needs time to work on, and she will have to be away from work at Covered California.

With back-to-back medical emergencies in our family, we are in trouble. Bills are piling up, and the travel to and from the hospital has eaten up my savings. With my battle with Necrotisin Fasieateus last year, we went to the limits on our credit cards. We had a safety net that has disappeared. My pride has never let me ask anyone for help, and I still don’t know that I want to start now. But this is no longer just about me. We may need to switch to a COBRA insurance plan when Nancy’s state benefits run out in the next few months. The state of California will put together a campaign to get fellow state employees to donate sick time to my wife, which will help. But right now, there are so many unknowns.

With my pride set aside, I am asking for help.