Help Tommy Walk Again!

Hi! My name is Linda and I am fundraising money for my husband, Tom Traurig.

I would have to say that April 17th was the worst day of our lives. We had just gone to bed. I woke up to what I thought at the time was Tom having a bad dream. He was pounding his fists on the mattress, had this God-awful moan, and as I rolled over to see what he was doing, I saw his eyes have rolled back in his head. I started shaking him and as I had my hands on his shoulders I could feel that he was dead weight. When he started to come to, and his eyes rolled forward again, I asked him what was going on. He said, "I must be having a hard time falling asleep!" He had been asleep for an hour and was totally unaware of what just happened. He then got up to use the bathroom. As he entered the bathroom, he had, as we now label it, another seizure! He has never had a seizure before this night! He blacked out again, fell backwards, hitting his head against a wall breaking his neck! I flew out of bed and ran to him. Again, he had this God-awful moan and his eyes were rolled back in his head. It is 12:05 a.m. on April 17th.

This man, in a blink of an eye, went from 14,000 to 17,000 steps per day working part time, taking care of the yard work, all the cooking and grocery shopping, taking care of me and our 2 little dogs to being paralyzed from the chest down and being totally reliant on others to care for him. Over the last 6 weeks, he has been heavily sedated, has 2 rods and 9 screws placed in his neck, has had pneumonia, coded 3 times, had a heart attack, has a pacemaker, has a trachiostomy, was on a ventilator and now he is working to have the trach downsized and eventually removed. He is not able to use his hands, legs or feet. YET! He has visions that he will walk again.

The funds we are needing would go towards travel expenses for me as he will be going to several different facilties as his medical needs change, his deductible on his insurance, changes to our 2 story home for him to have access, possibly a chair lift so he can go upstairs to use our walk in shower we just had put in on March 8th.

It is important to him to return home as he was born and raised here. He is a retired City of Manitowoc Police Officer, a retired part-time County Transport Deputy and is a Courier for Froedtert HFM Hospital. He has 3 grown sons, 3 adult step-children, 16 grandchildren and 2 great-grandchildren and I am his wife of 22 years! I am truly blessed to call him my husband.

He has a long road ahead of him! Any assistance is truly appreciated to help us get through this traumatic life changing event.