Please help Donald Dolan with urgent knee surgery

Hello friends. Our friend Donald Dolan needs our help.

About 3 weeks ago Don fell, which caused his knee to buckle. His knee is at risk of being amputated if he does not receive surgery very soon. He has brittle bones due to medications he has been on for years. The longer he waits without surgery, the greater the chance that his knee will continue to fracture and could become unrepairable.

The donations will cover the upfront costs that the insurance company requires to approve the surgery. The insurance company will not approve the surgery without paying up front. The reason for this is he was hospitalized for over 6 months due to a botched back surgery and aftercare at the hospital. He is still paying for that extended hospitalization.

Please help our friend.

Thank you for your time and support!

Gregg and Ken

Here is Don's story in his own words...

Hello,

My name is Donald Dolan, but you can call me Don. Some of you may know me from my 35 years in the Information Technology field as a Senior Project / Program Manager, but many of you probably won't. Either way, I'd like to thank you for stopping by to read my story of 2+ years in the making.

May 3rd, 2020 the story begins.

My family and I were returning home from visiting my mother-in-law at the assisted living facility she was living at in Norridge - just outside of Chicago. We stopped by Photos Hot Dogs on Rt 14 in Palatine that evening on the way home to grab some dinner. While in the drive-thru pick-up lane, a teenager who had just gotten his license and his father had bought him a car for his 16th birthday, was goofing around with four other teens in the car (two boys, two girls) when he mistakenly (at least I hope so) hit the accelerator rather than the brake as he sped around the circular drive-thru, when he rear-ended our van doing approximately 55 miles an hour, so the police estimated. As I had my seat belt off temporarily to be able to turn and take the food and drinks from the pickup window when the kid hit us, the force of the impact sheared my lower spine, and my knees were driven into the front dashboard cracking it and damaging my knees.

At first the was only soreness, but over the next few days, the pain only increased while my mobility decreased. I saw my primary care doctor who referred me to an orthopedic surgeon, and he only wanted to do cortisone shots in the spine and the knees, which he did, but to no effect. That was the only treatment plan he offered, yet the pain worsened, and I started experiencing sciatica-type of shooting pains down my spine, down my legs, and into my feet. After seeing three other orthopedic surgeons and neurosurgeons, I settled on one who came highly recommended. After he sent me for physical therapy for 4 months in the fall of 2020, the pain continued to get worse in my back and knees. My neurosurgeon then decided to do a rather lengthy back surgery to remove the broken pieces of my spine and accompanying sharp jagged bone fragments from my spine that were cutting into the spinal column and into the nerves.. which was what was causing all the shooting pains, electric shocks and spasms. This first back surgery occurred on January 26th, 2021.

January 26th, 2021: The several-hour-long surgery was not as successful as had been promised. Some of the back pain was reduced a bit, but not by a whole lot. What was worse is the doctor inadvertently cut some nerves in my spinal column that caused me to have a permanent drop foot to my right foot. This means my big toe and the next two toes over no longer have any feeling to them, they're permanently numb and no longer move/have any sensation to them.. all of which has permanently affected my balance and ability to walk unassisted. I now use a walker 90% of the time to get around, or a 5-foot-long walking stick to help me with my balance. My doctor was convinced this was a temporary issue and to come back and see him in three months, which I did. When he saw there was no improvement, he ordered another MRI of my spine and set up a second back surgery to try and correct the error from the first one. Unfortunately, we learned it was too late.

April 1st, 2021: the second back surgery to correct the mistake from the January 26th surgery was unsuccessful. Nothing was resolved. Again I was told to wait 3 or 4 months to see if approved.. it didn't. Another MRI was performed in August 2021, to which my doctor said that "everything looked great!" But it certainly didn't feel that way. I saw him again in October 2021, had him review the MRI again, and got tested for mobility and pain.. but failed miserably which surprised him. Upon looking at the same MRI from August, the doctor commented "yea, I guess I screwed up and could have probably done a better job"! To say I was floored by his admission would be an understatement! He then asked me if I wanted to do a third back surgery with him to Tru and correct the issues he created or missed in the first two surgeries. I declined to say I'd get back to him.

July 1st, 2021: My right knee pain was so bad and the joint not being stable, it was replaced due to the previous accident, and was told to wait on having the left one replaced.

In November 2021, I found a new neurosurgeon to look at my spine and after I took all of my medical records and images to him for review, he was dumbfounded by what he was seeing! He immediately and patiently walked me through the issues with my spine, vertebrae by vertebrae, what looked good, what looked fair, what looked poor, what was still wrong, and what needed to be done still. This led to the conclusion that the first doctor had taken too much bone out of my spinal column and in the process destabilized it. My back was in danger of collapsing onto itself and potentially paralyzing me in the process. A decision was made to go to extreme measures to stabilize my spine, which entailed one surgery to put in/attach 35 titanium brackets to the back of my spine, then 4 days later go in through my back to put in three titanium rods, which were to be held in place by the brackets. (See the attached x-ray). Surgery with the new neurosurgeon was on February 10th, 2022, and the hardware was installed at Good Samaritan Hospital in Downers Grove. The surgery itself took nearly 12 hours to fix everything he could while also installing the support rods. I was then turned over to their rehab floor to try and get me up and moving. A few weeks later I was transferred to Lutheran General Hospital in Park Ridge for further rehab. I was there for two weeks when one Thursday night I was sent down for a CT Scan of my thoracic spine and the technicians tried to transport me from the gurney to the table using only a sheet. As they forgot to lock the wheels on the bed, it slipped out from underneath them when they tried to lift me to slide me over. This caused one technician to lose her grip on the sheet - which then caused the other technician to flip me over face first into to CT Scan table, breaking my nose and septum. Yet they went through with putting me in the CT Scan tube for the test! If I hear "Breathe in, Breathe out, hold your breath ", it will be too soon!

Four days later, I was sent down for an MRI of my lumbar spine, and the same issue that occurred with the CT Scan occurred again! The table wasn't locked, they dropped the sheet, but this time they dropped me on the hard edge of the MRI table, directly on the incision in my back, splitting it open and causing further damage. One of the support rods got bent from the blow to my spine as you can see. Another few days later during my rehab work, where I was just learning how to walk again, I wasn't feeling well. I was feeling lightheaded, disoriented and feverish. They took me back to my room and took my temperature.. 104.7. They then took me to the office of the patient coordinator where I passed out and fell out of the wheelchair. The next memory I have is waking up three weeks later in the ICU but back at Good Samaritan hospital with a wound vac on to remove and clear up the infection. The photo of my open spine below shows the incision once it was free and clear of the infection. Zooming in you can see pieces of the metal support system they put in.

After another week or so had passed, I was sent back for rehab, but not to Lutheran General Hospital, but to a lesser tier 2 rehab facility called Aventerra in Park Ridge near Lutheran General Hospital. Due to their staff shortage, I barely received much physical or occupational therapy. A month later I was finally transferred back to Lutheran General Hospital, where I remained until my birthday, June 1st when I was finally discharged to go home. In total, I was in one hospital or rehab clinic or another for 128 days straight this year, my bills, alone for everything are at 1.275M right now, 80% of which was covered by insurance.

Three weeks ago I was meeting a friend for lunch at Woodfield when my left knee buckled, popped out of the socket and I did a face-first fall onto the concrete sidewalk smashing my face (see the photo below), breaking my left orbital socket, nose and cheekbone, not to mention causing 4 fractures of my left knee cap and a fracture of my tibia. My main problem now is that due to the medications I've been taking for years, I now have osteoarthritis and osteoporosis. Osteoporosis has caused my bones to become extremely brittle to the point, that they not only break upon hard impact but also shatter and splinter, which makes them very difficult to heal properly. My orthopedic surgeon wants to do a knee replacement on the left knee by the end of this year to prevent any further complications or fractures from occurring. The insurance company is asking for between $25 - $30K upfront before they will approve the surgery, as I'm already over my limit for the year. The problem is my doctor states that the longer I go without the surgery, the increase in the probability that more fractures will occur, making the bone above and below the knee useless as anchors for the new prosthesis.. which means they might have to amputate my lower leg if the surgery doesn't occur soon.

So, any help you can provide to help me pay the upfront cost of this surgery, so I can get it scheduled within the next two weeks would be greatly appreciated!

Thank you very much for listening.

Warm Regards,

Don Dolan