Rich's Medical Care

On September 1st Rich gave into his fight with depression and took his entire prescription of antidepressants which caused him to go into cardiac arrest. It took the EMTs and the ER at Jefferson Abington Hospital 30 minutes to bring him back. It was touch and go for a few days, but miraculously he pulled through and could even breathe off the ventilator.

By Friday, 9/9/22, Rich was well enough to be moved from the MICU to the Rehabilitation Floor so they could work on his strength and talking. Unfortunately, in the very early hours of 9/12/22, Rich suffered another cardiac arrest. The hospital was able to get him back within moments, but he was placed back on a ventilator and put back in the MICU.

Finally, on 9/16/22, Rich was well enough to be transferred to the hospital Telemetry Unit, where they have been monitoring his heart.

Due to an anoxic brain injury that occurred from the original cardiac arrest, Rich can no longer swallow, so on Thursday, 9/22/22, he had a small operation to add a feeding tube directly into his stomach. Then on 9/27/22, Rich had surgery to add a subcutaneous defibrillator to his heart, so if he goes into a rapid heart rate, he will get a little jolt to bring it back to normal.

He is about to be released to a Rehabilitation Facility so they can work with him to get him to sit, stand and walk and work on swallowing and speech. He has a long road ahead of him, and no one can say for sure what the result will be, but Rich is a fighter, so we know he will give it his all.

I am asking for help because we are now down to just my income. Our health insurance plan was through Rich, so on top of paying the deductible, we also have to pay out of pocket to continue our health insurance.