My name is Rich Alix and I am starting this GoFundMe to help my sister, who you may know as Kate, Trina, Kat or even Katrina. For those who don't know she is in the hospital and recovering from a scary and unexpected event made even scarier by the bad timing, catching her without insurance and facing a stack of bills.

When she started coming down with a sore throat a couple of weeks ago, we didn't think much of it. Our father was recovering from a cold, we figured that she had caught it from him. Little did we know that things were going to quickly progress from a normal cold to a life-threatening emergency. On the morning of May 1st, Kate went to the ER having trouble breathing and within 24 hours she was in a medically induced come, on her way to an ICU bed at UMass Memorial hospital in the helicopter after an emergency tracheostomy.

She remained that way for a week as the doctors and nurses worked to fight the fever and pneumonia that she had. We were able to visit and sit with her but thankfully she remained unaware of what her body was going through. During this entire stay, the only thing that they were able to say was that she tested positive for a strain of strep throat and she had signs of angioedema on her lips and face, they had no idea what may have caused it.

After her lungs had healed some and all of her lab tests started to return to normal they started the process of waking her up. They warned us that there was a chance of some neurological injury due to being poorly oxygenated at the emergency room but as she woke, we were happy to see that Trina was returned to us as the same person she was before. She has been downgraded from the ICU and is off the ventilator but still has the trach tube to assist in her breathing. They think she has another week or two in the hospital and then possibly some time in rehab before she gets to come home. Even with everything trending so positively, she still has a long road ahead of her.

Now for the bad timing part. This all happened within a few weeks of her starting a new job and before her insurance and time off had kicked in. Her employer has been working to see what they can do, and she is exploring her options but she will likely be facing a significant amount of hospital bills and a lengthy amount of time before she can return to working full-time with no issues.

Our family and I thank you all for taking the time to read this and for any amount that you choose to send her way. Anything raised will go directly to medical bills and/or living expenses while she recovers.

Thank you again and God bless!