Ronnie Garner Care Fund

Hello Friends and Family,

It is with heavy hearts we write you today.

This campaign is to raise money for our father, husband and friend Ronnie Garner: The wise-cracking, surf-obsessed man and US Veteran we all know and love! For those of you who don't know Ronnie (and thank you for visiting this page), Ronnie is one of a kind. He is fiercely consistent in his personality. And this goes for everything from his sense of humor to his love of friendship and his community. His lifelong childhood friends are a testament to this character. He is the man you call to talk, or to ask a favor, or to borrow literally any tool you could imagine...and he always answers.

Ronnie is just returning from an extended hospital stay and, tragically, is completely incapacitated and bedridden. He requires pretty much around-the-clock help. And as you can imagine, Louise is on her own and cannot do everything he needs. Furthermore, his insurance is not covering his home care AT ALL. While we have been able to get some assistance from the VA, private care was unavoidable in his situation…at least for the time being. And for a family on a fixed income, this has presented an enormous amount of pressure. While it is incredibly uncomfortable to ask for a large sum of money from our community, the fact of the matter is that there's just no other way for us to take care of him. To give you an idea, the private company we hired to help Louise outside of the covered care is approximately 4k monthly.

For those of you who don’t know what happened to Ronnie, here is a brief rundown:

* He was in and out of the hospital throughout December with some stomach issues. With all tests coming back negative, the doctors were uncertain what the cause was and kept sending him home

* Then, the weekend of Christmas, he was frail and fell in the middle of the night and was then transported to the hospital.

* When he arrived at the hospital, they saw that he had low electrolytes and phosphates in his blood work. He was having trouble regulating his breathing, therefore elevated to the ICU to avoid respiratory failure, sedated and intubated (breathing tube put in).

* While in the ICU, Doctors discovered he had pneumonia and began treating that with antibiotics.

* After about a week of this treatment, the tube was taken out. Ronnie was very disoriented, had difficulty speaking, and began having vivid hallucinations.

* Over the next several weeks, he was given multiple CT Scans, MRIs, EEGs, EKGs, swallowing tests, ultrasounds of his heart, blood cultures, urine cultures and a lumbar puncture. All of which returned negative results. The spinal fluid taken from his spine with the lumbar puncture was even sent to the prestigious Mayo Clinic. And still, no diagnosis was able to be given; the doctors were and still are stumped.

* The result of all of this trauma is that Ronnie has been bedridden (he is moving his arms a little, thankfully). His speech is still impaired; he is still hallucinating (some days are worse than others). He has had a feeding tube surgically inserted directly into his stomach as he is not allowed anything orally.

*We are looking at every way to raise money, including selling his hot tub and Motorcycle. But this alone cannot cover the expenses we will have long term.

The last few months have been hard on all of us. Once Ronnie was discharged from the hospital, we decided, along with his doctors, that it would be best to bring him home to a familiar space in the hopes that his mind would start to clear up and he would "come back" a bit more. The good news is, after this extended hospital stay, Ronnie has now been home since February 19th! While he remains confused at times, he has been more alert and aware. Things are starting to move in the right direction slowly! We are happy to have visitors, so please reach out to us if you’d like to visit him...he would love to see you!

We have all (Genevieve, Louise and Matt) been working tirelessly to organize home care for him, home health services, physical therapy, and everything he needs to get back to some sense of everyday life. And while we've got the system down pretty good with the VA assisting on a limited basis, we still have to rely on private care to help with most of his care. And, as noted above, the care is approximately $4000 a month.

Your donation will go DIRECTLY towards Ronnie's care. Including:

* In-home health services - Bathing, bathroom, turning, feeding, etc

* Medical equipment rental

* Perscriptions (outside of what is covered)

* Special food for Ronnie (feeding tube)

We hope that Ronnie makes it through this tough time and gets to a point where he no longer needs care. It will be a long road, likely by the end of the year at best. Hence the large number we are asking for. If, God forbid, Ronnie was to take a turn in the other direction, your money would go directly to helping Louise with her cost of living.

We know a lot is going on in the world, and we hate to ask for help. But hopefully, you can find it in your hearts to lend a hand so that we can continue to give Ronnie the best care and chance at recovery. (Please note: he is not even a candidate for rehab at this time, as one has to have more mobility and cognitive capacity to “participate” in the rehabilitation.) Ronnie has always been generous with his time and energy when it comes to his community. He's always been a phone call away from those he cares about. We hope you can lend some help at a time when he most sorely needs it. Any amount you can donate, whether one dollar or $100 or more, will be very much appreciated by all of us. Thank you so much for your attention and participation.

Also, please consider sharing this campaign as well. Thank you in advance for your donations, love, and support. We are eternally grateful to all of you.

-Matt, Stephanie, Genevieve and Louise