Please help and support Butch & Judy Stockham

As many of you know, this has been a very difficult time for Butch and Judy Stockham. On 13 February Butch had a second open heart surgery at St Boniface, a repeat of 2016. His new valve needed to be replaced as it was leaking and he had more bypasses done as well. Coming out of the surgery he was not stable and by midnight Judy was called back to the hospital to be with him and say goodbye as he was in critical condition. A short time late his surgeon came and did more surgery through the wee small hours of the morning and brought him through. Things were going well but as it turned out he picked up a staph infection in the hospital before coming home and became very ill,  other complications include a collapsed lung, two bouts of pneumonia, a build up of pleural effusion that had to be drained, and two other hospital bugs. The staph infection was treated, it came back a second time, and now a third time. He has been hospitalized a total of 12 weeks between more than a month altogether in Winnipeg and the rest here. This last time in Winnipeg they learned that the infection had attacked his new valve, causing a number of pseudoaneurysms around the valve that are leaking. The only treatment for pseudoaneurysms is through more open heart surgery and Winnipeg said that it was not an option for Butch as it is too complex, lengthy, and high risk. Devastated as they said that he would die in the near future, he asked to be transferred back to Kenora and was airlifted to the hospital here this past Monday.
However, our cousin Cathy is a doctor in Ottawa and in talking to a cardiologist friend, they arranged to have a surgeon at the University of Ottawa Heart Institute review his case. Yesterday Butch and Judy got the news that Dr Fraser Rubens is willing to do the surgery despite the complexity and risks. A glimmer of hope!
Expenses have run high this past winter, spring, and summer. To complicate things, Judy is in the cue for hip replacement surgery and getting in and out of a car is difficult for her, it is easier to walk a short distance to the hospital and thus narrowing the choices of where she can stay. Once in Ottawa she is hoping to stay in a dormitory near where the surgery will be. If the surgery is successful, they are expecting a lengthy stay in the city.
By Tuesday, Wednesday at the latest, they will know when Butch will be airlifted to Ottawa for the surgery, knowing that it will be in the near future as the pseudoaneurysms can burst at any time.
Butch has fought long and hard throughout it all. Please hold him close in your hearts at this time and he continues to fight for life.

The photograph of Butch in better days is from their dream trip to the Yukon and Alaska in 2015. The second photograph is from May when he was home for awhile.