What was supposed to be a fun weekend in Texas, turned into something unimaginable. Stephanie woke up on Saturday, April 16th, with excruciating stomach pain. I drove her to the ER in El Paso, TX where they ran some tests and determined that due to her extremely high lipase level of 24,000 she had to have emergency surgery to get her gallbladder removed. She had over 50 gallstones. After spending nine days in the hospital in El Paso, she flew back home to Florida to begin what was supposed to be a quick road to recovery. Just two days later, she woke up with even worse pain than before and was rushed to Palm Bay hospital. The doctors found internal bleeding and thought it was coming from her spleen. She was airlifted to Holmes Regional in Melbourne where she had more tests ran and decided she needed exploratory surgery that resulted in her getting her spleen removed, 2 liters of blood removed from her abdomen and severe damage to her pancreas. She currently is still in the ICU on a ventilator and feeding tube, and has at least one more surgery to verify the source of her internal bleeding, clamp it, and stitch her stomach back up. She will be in the hospital for the next few weeks before she is able to start her long journey of recovery at home. 

Stephanie is a nurse in the ICU at Palm Bay Hospital and is usually the one taking care of patients but now we would like to be the ones to take care of her. Anything to help make her recovery less stressful for her and her family is greatly and wholeheartedly appreciated.