
Shelly's road to recovery and getting home!
Donation protected
Shelly went down to the ER at Shands (UF Health) July 5 with symptoms of bruising on her face, feet turning black and blue, dizziness, and shortness of breath. They immediately took her back and started testing and trying to treat symptoms that were known. She was transferred to ICU with her liver and kidney not doing the jobs they are supposed to do. After some tests, they found blood clots in her legs, chest/heart area and in brain. As of now, we do know the one by her heart is gone! (Miracle in itself). After spending a couple days in ICU, she was transferred to a regular floor which was great news but also bittersweet with moving to a floor of nurses that just don't meet the same kind of care ICU or ER teams give. On July 18, I talked to her over the phone around 10 am. After we got off the phone, chaos broke loose. She got up to use the bathroom and basically collapsed from the amount of pain she was in. She was coherent enough to hear what was going on around her and absolutely terrified. They rushed her into emergency surgery where they removed as many blood clots as they could and put stents in. Blood clots were all over.. the doctor had to be pretty aggressive and she has two large incisions on both sides of her pelvis/hip area. When visiting last week, she had to have another blood transfusion and her heart is improving with the work it is doing. It was at 15% after surgery and when I was there last Friday, it was improved up to 25%. Today, I am writing this on July 30 and received a text from her that they are moving her from the CCU floor back to ICU... She's not entirely sure why except that they are worried about her heart and more testing will be done. Liver and kidney levels are still not where they need to be at this time as well. Shelly is still herself completely. Somehow making people laugh with the crazy things she says and she is 100% fighting hard. That's the biggest comfort of all of this. She is still herself and I think she would want everyone to know that.
I made this GoFundMe for her and Ray because she is worried about Ray having to be the main source of income for their home and she is feeling extremely upset, like she is not doing enough and I have been thinking for a couple weeks of how her village can help... this is probably the best way. She is not able to have flowers delivered but can have cards, etc.
Organizer and beneficiary
Summer Flowers
Organizer
St. Marys, GA
Shelly Ortiz
Beneficiary