Hey everyone, as hard as this is for myself to do, we are at or past the point of needing to reach out within our community for help. For those of you who do not know everything going on, In July of last year I had my second bowel perforation occur out of no where. I have always followed all the rules given to keep my stomach well protected, and was even on medications that were supposed to be preventing this from recurring. On August 18th, I underwent major surgery to reconstruct my pouch and stomach, remove and resect a portion of my stomach and bowel, and give it a fresh closure in hopes that this would solve the issues I kept having. Although surgery went well, I to this day have not recovered. I live in significant pain daily, am unable to maintain proper nutrition most days, and struggle to do simple day-to-day task. I went from living a very active life working 2 jobs, caring for our farm, and raising our 3 amazing kids, to hardly being able to get out of bed some days and needing help with a LOT of what I do. I have undergone numerous scans, testing, procedures, seen all kinds of doctors and specialists, etc to try and get to the root cause, which has so far been unsuccessful. The medical bills are piling up like crazy, we are living on 1 income and have been struggling for some time now. We are the type of family who always helps others, I would and have done anything and everything I can to help anyone. I have always been the “giver” not the recipient of need, and when I have been it is incredibly hard for me to even admit need is there. We are at the point where God is showing me I need to show humbleness and not let my pride hinder things any further. People do not know there is a need if I refuse to be transparent about how hard it has been. Creating this is immensely vulnerable and difficult for me, but we need help. Even if that help is just continued outpouring of love and prayer for our family while we continue to navigate chronic illness like this. The support of prayer and love that has been sent our way has been so uplifting, it has brought me through some dark places many times now. I can not thank you guys enough for the continuous prayer for our family.

I am currently creating this sitting in my room at the Cleveland clinic hotel. I had my first appointment today and received information that feels so discouraging but also overwhelming. Everything here is insanely expensive. They need me to stay and push out my visit longer to undergo lab testing tomorrow, a procedure Thursday to take a look and see what my anatomy and things even look like currently, and another procedure Friday to check for a few different abnormalities that could be causing some of these issues I have been having. Being fully transparent, it cost just over 800$ for my ticket to fly here, another almost 800$ for the hotel here on campus from Monday - Thursday that has a shuttle service to and from the hospital and clinics, plus another 200$ when I arrived in “security deposits” that I did not know I would need, not counting any food. I thought my breakfast was at least included in that cost, but found out last night that is also not covered and just for simple muffin and apple juice this morning it was 10$. I now need to pay for hotels to extend my stay to Saturday being my leaving date, move my plane ticket, and figure out food and other needs for those days. My out of pocket co insurance payment that must be paid at time of each thing the rest of this week equals just shy of another 500$. These are just for this visit. Not even counting the insane amount of bills and expenses leading up to now since last July. Y’all, it is HEAVY. I am TIRED. My body and mind are growing so weary. I know that God will make a way and will provide. But that doesn’t mean it doesn’t hurt and is easy.

If you would like to help I have created this with full transparency and will continue to be very open with everything. If helping looks like continuous praying for us, that is also SO much appreciated and so needed. We are incredibly thankful for everyone who has helped us through the past couple years of trials and struggle. You guys have no idea how much the support has meant to us. From the bottom of our hearts, thank you for all you guys have and continue to do for our family.

-Charity, Daniel, and the kids