Paul Norton is one of the kindest, most generous, and thoughtful people that many of us have had the opportunity to know. He is always there to lend a helping hand. He supports his community as a longtime resident of Atascadero. He will come alongside you and pray for you or with you anytime. He is just a wonderful husband, dad, step-dad, grandpa, brother, friend, etc. He loves God and has always strived to be a good Christian man that helps those around him. Well, now is Paul’s time of need and I am humbly asking for his community of family, friends, sisters and brothers in Christ to come alongside him and carry him during this incredibly difficult time.

As many of you know, Paul has had absolutely awful knees for the last decade but has continued to work hard and labor despite them. In the Spring of 2021 Paul was beginning the pre-op journey to finally have his left knee replaced at USC. During the workup, they discovered that he had serious lab and EKG abnormalities. After months of tests Paul was diagnosed with Acute Lymphocytic Leukemia, an abnormal aortic heart valve, and an aortic root and arch aneurysm. It was very overwhelming and stressful to get all of this bad health news at once, but Paul always remained positive and said that God has a plan for him. Because it is such a complex surgery involving so many parts of the heart, the surgery he required isn't even done on the central coast and he was forced to go to a tertiary care center (large hospital out of the area). Not only would he be put on the heart lung bypass machine in order to stop the heart to replace the valve, but they would also have to take the arteries that supply blood to his brain temporarily off in order to fix the aneurysm of his aortic root and arch. Going into this huge surgery was incredibly scary, but again, Paul always leaned on God for his strength. He elected to go to USC since he would hopefully have his knee surgery there someday. After more tests and evaluation, Paul was finally cleared by an oncology team on the central coast and at USC in the fall to undergo open heart surgery for his unstable aneurysm and valve.

On October 4, 2021 Paul had his open heart surgery. The surgery itself overall went well, although he was on the heart lung bypass machine for quite a while with how elaborate it was. The recovery was proving to be brutal. He went into Atrial Fibrillation post operatively as well and had to start on a long term blood thinner. Since his surgery was out of the area, Paul and Lynette had to get a hotel room in the hotel semi-connected to the Keck USC Hospital. He was required to be there early for pre-op and covid screening which added a night's stay and then Lynette stayed there to be by his side during his recovery. Incurring more financial hardship during a time that he couldn’t work.

Post open heart surgery recovery is very hard. He went from being on no medications, to a slew of meds that made him feel awful and not like himself. During our Thanksgiving celebration, he had an abnormal neurological state, was exhibiting stroke like symptoms, and ended up being evaluated at the ER. After all of his head scans and tests came back normal, he was diagnosed with a TIA and potential brain small vessel blockages from the surgery unable to be detected on the CT scan. On New Year’s Eve, he again experienced an abnormal neurological state and was evaluated in the ER with the same “potential diagnosis” and that his A-fib heart rate being too fast at times could also be the culprit. Because of the Afib, ongoing stroke like symptoms, and being sub therapeutic on Coumadin despite titrating up the dose, they changed his blood thinner to Eliquis, which does not have a generic, ended up not being covered by their insurance, and costs a small fortune each month. But nothing definitive was coming up to explain his neurological and cognitive changes that he was experiencing.

Since these occurrences, we have become more in tune to watching his neurological state and have noticed some cognitive slowing, difficulty finding words and answers he normally knows, difficulty expressing what he knows he wants to say, and just being very tired. Then, on Friday, February 11th Paul had a large neurological break that he has not recovered from. He is confused, unable to talk at times, can’t process, and a number of other serious issues. He is not the Paul we know at this time and again we are at a loss for concrete answers. He is still currently in the hospital. The local hospital doctors have attempted to grasp this situation, but do not have solid answers for us by any means. They have ruled out many of the potential diagnoses that could cause this. We have been hoping and praying that they would unearth some reversible cause for this, but instead they are throwing out things like vascular dementia and Lewy Body dementia; very scary permanent diseases that would change Paul forever. Our family is reeling from this seemingly sudden change and loss of the amazing man we know and love. We are trying our best to gather together and support both Paul and Lynette. Paul will be coming home from the hospital in a day or two and the next step will be to rest and follow up at the “Memory Clinic.”

Since surgery in October, not only has Paul not been well enough physically or mentally to continue working as a contractor to support their normal needs, but they have endured such a financial burden with all of the medical issues. They have outstanding medical bills from the in depth testing to discover his CLL and heart problems, USC hospital bills from open heart surgery, the numerous ER visits, this current hospitalization, and future medical bills of going back to USC to the "Memory Clinic" to deep dive and evaluate his brain to strive for an actual diagnosis. In the last year, they have continued to get kicked while they were down, and we are ready for them to catch their long-awaited break. If you feel so inclined, we would be incredibly grateful of a monetary donation to help them on this path. We are hoping to raise enough money to help with the outstanding medical bills and to allow them to go to the Memory Clinic and be able to stay at the hotel close to the hospital during his evaluation.

More importantly, they are people of strong faith and if supporting them financially is not an option, we ask for continuous prayer for complete restoration of health to Paul’s body through whatever path the Lord brings their way.

In unity, in faith and with love, we thank you all,

Paul, Lynette, kids, and grand babies