Michelle (Leggett) Nath: ICU and Medical Fund

As many of you are aware, Michelle was hospitalized in September after not feeling well for a couple of days. When she went to the ER, she was diagnosed with Pneumonia and severe sepsis stemming from a staph infection. Shortly after being admitted she went into septic shock. Severe sepsis is when the infection causes organ damage affecting, the kidneys, heart, lungs, brain, and/or other organs. It also causes low oxygen (hers dropped as low as 55%) and low platelet count (they were told she basically had no platelets). Upon admittance, Michelle was told that she had had a mild heart attack, kidney failure, liver failure, and partial pancreatic failure. After she was admitted, she also went into respiratory failure and was moved by ambulance to a larger city where she was in a coma on a ventilator in ICU until they were able to wake her up on October 8th. Septic shock has a mortality rate of over 60% and your prognosis depends on how many organs were affected and how severe it becomes before treatment is started. They began treating her with high doses of antibiotics, dialysis, and immediately sought to get her on the liver transplant list. Initially, the doctors were not optimistic that she would survive the first night, let alone the experience.  It wasn’t until after the first week that they began being “guardedly optimistic” that she might survive the infection but could not speculate about what long-term damage was done. (They will continue to monitor that as she proceeds with her recovery.) Eventually, Michelle was released to go home with orders for IV medications for 4-8 weeks, Oxygen as her levels still were falling into the 60s and 70s, home health care, and occupational speech, respiratory therapy. 

Because the pandemic as well as distance prohibits us friends and family from being able to support them in other ways, we decided that relieving some of the financial stress of the medical bills would be the most helpful as it allows them to focus on her continued recover and wellbeing. Unfortunately, after being laid off this year, Josh’s new insurance began shortly before Michelle got sick so they are not only having to start over with a new deductible, but they will have to start all over again and meet the 2021 deductible right away in January. While insurance will cover a lot, there will be a lot for them to cover as well given the length of her stay, the ambulance transfer, the level of care that was required, and the ongoing care at home as it will be a long road to complete recovery. That 4-8 week antibiotic regiment I mentioned that she would be undergoing as well? That carried a price tag of $320/week as their responsibility AFTER insurance!
 
We recognize that not everyone is in a position to contribute as we are going into the holiday season and each of us have been impacted in different ways by the pandemic; however, if you are in a position to donate to a good cause this holiday season, we hope that you will consider helping to defray the cost of this experience. If you are unable to contribute financially, we hope that you will consider sharing the link in order to reach as many people as possible. Clicking a reaction or leaving a comment on the Facebook post would also help as it will keep it more visible the more activity it receives thus reaching the newsfeeds of more people as well.