Michelle Browning Relief Fund

Hi, my name is John Uibel. I'm fundraising for my friend and neighbor Michelle Browning, a dear friend and a wonderful, loving mother who has endured a lifetime of unimaginable physical hardship. Faced with mounting medical expenses that have overwhelmed her and her family, she needs our help. She's a determined fighter, tough as nails, but her situation is financially crushing. Funds raised would make much-needed accessibility modifications to their home and allow her to remain active and participate in life. With your generosity, she could also purchase a specially-outfitted vehicle to enable her to enjoy even greater mobility.

Michelle was born with a crippling condition and has suffered through a variety of cancers and numerous surgeries over the years. She has powered through many painful setbacks that would cause any of us to crumble. But in the face of it all, she fell in love, remains married to a good, kind, and patient man. She and Steve have raised three beautiful children, and are joyfully welcoming loads of grandchildren into their lives.

Michelle is fun, she loves her family, her spirits remain high and is as positive as ever. But Michelle and her hard-working husband need our help.

Michelle's story (in her own words):

I was born with a condition that is called "congenital hip dysplasia". This usually means that you are born with the top of your femur bone not fitting into the pelvis socket. But I was born without the ball and socket completely on both legs.

In my first few minutes, I was whisked away and put in traction to try to fix the hips. At one point when my dad came to see me, my legs were almost black. The weights they placed on them caused the discoloration and the nurses hadn't checked on me for a while. This [was] not the [only] time I had a ferocious leg infection.

When I was four, I had one of my many hip surgeries. Back then, they isolated my hip by putting me in a whole-body cast. One evening, my mom and dad smelled something horrible. It ended up being me under the cast! My dad took me in to see the doctor. The doctor claimed they were blisters. My dad grabbed the doctor by the collar and demanded he take the casts off, despite it taking hours to put those body casts on. Sure enough, I had gangrene! Apparently, I was allergic to the stitches—all 200 of them. They put me in traction for months and would throw straight alcohol into the cast three to four times a day. It would take three nurses to hold me down. I ended up having four hip surgeries from that doctor. Turns out, that doctor completely ruined my hips.

We found a new doctor in Los Angeles when I was seven. He did multiple surgeries on me. I had 16 surgeries on my right hip and seven on my left.

I am the first person in the United States to have what is called a "resurfaced hip". This means you don't need a total hip replacement. Instead, they put a metal cup over the one you have. It didn't work on me.

I got married and became pregnant with twins. I ended up so very sick, I lost 30 pounds. My hip situation didn't help at all. Both the babies and my hips were in danger. I was in bed the entire time to keep those twins. They had to take the twins a month and a half early by C-section because I threatened to miscarry the whole pregnancy.

After the twin boys came, I noticed my eyesight had gone bad. I went to an eye doctor and he told me I have an eye condition called Keratoconus, a condition of the cornea. Eventually, I will need cornea transplants.

For my entire marriage of 43 years, I have had doctor bills. I've gone through a lot of surgeries. When I was 26 years old, I was diagnosed with uterine cancer. Luckily, I did not have to go through chemotherapy or radiation treatments. At 42, I had ovarian cancer. Again, I did not have to go through chemotherapy or radiation. Both times, they were localized growths. We did, however, find out the cancer was from radiation due to all the x-rays scans I had experienced.

So, 40 years later (I'm still going through more replacements) I felt a horrific pain down my right leg. I couldn't walk. I went to quite a few orthopedic doctors and nothing showed up on the x-rays. I sat on the couch, thinking it was going to get better.

Then, a week before Christmas, I fell into a coma-like state. My husband and daughter couldn't wake me up for two days. When they were able to finally get a response, I didn't know my own name or birthday. During this time, I lost thirty pounds because I couldn't eat. We couldn't put together why until I went to the E.R. and they ran a lot of tests to try and figure out what was going on. They found a bad infection in my right metal hip and that I was septic. My metal hip needed to be removed. But having had so many replacements already, when they went in to remove it there was not enough bone left to put in a new one. At this point, I had two options; remove the leg altogether or have no femur bone and never walk again. I just couldn't comprehend not having a leg!

Now I am in a wheelchair. I don't have most of my femur bone. When I was in surgery, evidently the main artery that runs down the inside of my leg was stuck on my metal hip. When trying to remove the metal, my artery tore and I lost a lot of blood—14 pints! They couldn't stop the bleeding and immediately sent me by helicopter to another hospital. Later, the doctor told me that he lost me for a minute. When I was awake enough, my family and the doctor explained that they removed most of the metal, but had to leave my socket because if he took it out, my whole pelvis would fall apart. I now have to be on an antibiotic for the rest of my life. I am already facing a great many repercussions from that alone.

I am scared. I try to put on a big smile and try hard not to dwell on my new life but, deep inside, I'm having a hard time. I can't drive unless we can get a van that is made for handicapped individuals. At this point, I cannot go anywhere by myself. It's really hard to think I will never walk again.

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Please join me in raising money for Michelle. Your contribution will make necessary home accessibility modifications and purchase a vehicle with hand-steering capability.

Michelle would appreciate the leg up.