With their deep love of each other, their witty, irreverent humor, and their strong faith, Mike and Kelly have persevered through hardships in the past. However, the last year has been a runaway train of difficulties led by Mike’s medical emergencies (the details of which will follow). In short, they are facing Christmas and the New Year with a loss of his income & medical benefits and an increase in medical costs & recovery care.
   Kelly will hopefully be able to leave his bedside after Christmas Break in order to resume her 30 years of dedicated teaching and  “Mama Bear” nurturing at De La Salle High School. Unfortunately, a teacher’s salary doesn’t go far in the Bay Area.
   We are asking for your help to keep their “train” on the tracks. 

    Just a bit over a year ago, Kelly’s parents lost their home and all their belongings in the terrible Camp Fire that raged through Paradise, California. This tragedy only exacerbated Kelly’s mother’s Alzheimer’s symptoms because of the loss of everything familiar. Although Mike and Kelly  provided emotional and as much financial support as they could; Mike was facing a life-threatening situation. We asked their son, Willi, to give Mike’s medical saga:

”Dad's major health issues started in December 2013 on 12/21. From my understanding, a combination of his medications caused a part of his Aorta at the top of his heart to bulge almost like an ulcer and it caused him a lot of pain and he was in the ICU. It was looking like he was going to have to have surgery, but he wanted to put it off until after Christmas. Ultimately the scar tissue healed enough of the bulging aorta where the surgeon did not feel comfortable operating on it, as the surgery would be more of a risk. So they settled on observation, and he would get regular CT Scans at Kaiser to track it and make sure it stayed healed. Unfortunately each year that followed it slowly began to bulge out more and more. Until he was told in December of 2018 that he would need surgery as it was growing to a point that it he did not operate on it soon, it would continue to become a more serious health risk Once again, Dad insisted on waiting until after the holidays for the surgery (to which I protested and told him to do everything as his surgeon recommends, even if it meant having to do it during Christmas). It was at this point that I also gained a better understanding of his medical situation as I had been working in a doctor's office and, not being in school this time, I was able to keep in touch easier than my hectic college years. Dad's medical problem was referred to as an Aortic Aneurysm and on 01/17/2019 he went into surgery to get it repaired. The surgery was complicated due to the positioning of the aneurysm and it was a case of the surgeon not knowing exactly how to fix it until they had gotten Dad opened up. It was a very stressful wait, but ultimately the surgery was successful. For a time.

Dad did not seem to fully recover after the first procedure and still seemed to have problems until we ultimately realized something was still very wrong. The repair had healed with a "kink" in his heart and was causing his organs, particularly his kidneys to not function properly. Dad had to go in for a second heart surgery to revise the repair, shortening / straightening out the part of the aorta that was being such a health risk for him. On Tuesday 05/21/2019 he went in to get this revision done. Both procedures were close to 10 hours in length. The revision was a very successful procedure and my dad worked on his recovery once again. At this point he was frustrated and so very tired of being in the hospital, and no one could blame him. He spent the following months recovering, before returning to work in October and finally beginning to work full 5 day weeks at the auto shop. He and my Mom had begun going out more to touristy locations such as the Monterey Bay Aquarium, where they got annual passes. They enjoyed themselves immensely, Mom even got my Dad two kittens for his birthday in September and he has been in love with them ever since. Besides being such a viscerally good person, my Dad has such an immense love and respect for animals. I could go on and on for hours about all the daring and caring acts he did on behalf of even wild animals. These are just a couple reasons why he has always been my hero. But I digress.

He was working his second full week back at work when disaster struck on 12/10/2019. He was installing spark plugs, and all of a sudden felt an immense pain that I cannot even fathom. He was doubled over and vomiting in pain, when his co-worker JR took him to the emergency room. As it turned out, his artery responsible for blood flow to his bowels and gut had dissected itself. The inner lining split from the outer lining and he was unable to get blood flow to much of his vitals. The emergency room they were at was not equipped to handle the complicated procedure, and neither was the facility in San Francisco that he had his prior procedures done at. So they ambulanced him, sirens blaring to UCSF where he was taken into immediate surgery to complete the thrombectomy. It was a long nine hour procedure during which my Mom was alone in the waiting room. While the procedure was successful, as they were able to reroute blood to his bowels using a vein from his leg, he needed to go back into surgery the following day to evaluate the damage that was done as his bowels were without blood for sometime. On Wednesday 12/11/2019, he underwent another 9 hour procedure, during which my Mom was surrounded by our close friends as they waited to see what came of the procedure. Ultimately, the surgeon reported that much of his small intestine had died and they were not sure the repair they made to it would hold up and he would need to undergo surgery a third time that week to check on it. The surgeon stated that during that second procedure, she had to remove over sixty percent of his small intestine, leaving him with just 180 centimeters down from the 500 centimeters you typically have, she also removed his appendix. She let us know that there was some tissue that was iffy whether or not it would be able to recover, but we trusted her judgement to leave or remove tissue as she felt necessary. On Friday 12/13/2019, he underwent another surgery with the same surgeon to evaluate how his intestinal repair was holding up and to check his tissue. Going in the surgeon warned us it was likely a 50/50 chance whether or not the repair would hold up and his tissue was healing. We told her to do everything she could to preserve his life, and then his quality of life. It was most important that our family unit was still whole. As fortune would have it, this procedure was much shorter, lasting only 2-3 hours as she went in and found that the repair had held up, and there was no further tissue death. Coming out of surgery, Dad had begun his long, long road to recovery. We were informed he would be in the hospital for weeks as he recovered from this traumatic event and the three surgeries to save his life. He was under anesthesia for almost five days and, even as I write this on 12/17/2019, he has not regained his full cognizance. He has so far been healing well, even doing better than his nurse practitioner expected. Despite this, he is at risk for "short gut" syndrome. Since he has so little small intestine left, he may not be able to process nutrients properly. If this is the case, he will require IV nutrients for the rest of his life, though he will still be able to eat. I was able to come to support Mom and Dad from Wednesday 12/11 through Sunday 12/15 before I had to return to Los Angeles, but I have kept close tabs on my Dad's health. I am happy to say that he is still with us and is doing well in his first days of recovery. I hope it continues.“
   Our prayers are not enough for this family. They will need the financial aid the Go Fund Me campaign will offer. Keep praying, please, and donate if you can!
(Let me introduce myself, I am Mary Yonekawa. I worked with Kelly for 16 years as a fellow teacher at De La Salle High School. Only her & Mike will have access to the funds, which will be used for thecosts of his care that are not covered by insurance. Now that they will not have his income, your donations will help relieve much of their stress.)