Stephen Burton Illness Support Fund
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July 11,2016 was a day that changed my life forever. It all started on the first day of a family vacation. We made our trip to West Virginia to spend time with my wife and girls and do some camping at Watoga State Park. The previous day I woke up to prep for the trip. I was contipated, which wasn't common and after a few laxitives, I was able to pass what had built up in my digestive tract. Nothing big, just a little speed bump...I thought. The next day, we woke early and started our trek to Watoga State Park. On the way to West Virginia, I started to feel gas pains and thought I needed to stop and use the bathroom, but said to myself, I could wait till I got to our destination. As we continued on, the pains got worse and I started to get really sick to my stomach. The pains and sickness got severe as we arrived in Lewisburg, WV to make a quick stop for supplies and gas before our arrival at Watoga State Park. I tried to use the bathroom and was unable to, so I decided we would move on and get to camp. At this point, I thought I had the flu or something, which was causing the constipation and pains in my stomach. I thought to myself, great!...the flu. I would just take a couple days of our vacation and rest at camp getting better. I've done this, been here before. No worries, I will just suck it up and get through it. I wasn't about to ruin the vacation for everybody, so to camp we went. Big mistake!
As we arrived at camp, I was still having severe abdominal pains and still couldn't use the bathroom. At this point I started to feel really sick to my stomach and could barely walk a few feet or more without having to sit down and rest from the pain.My temperature was 102 degrees. It was at that point I told my wife and daughters I couldn't do this. I apologized for ruining the trip and my wife and kids said it was more important for me to go to the hospital and get checked out. Something was wrong. I needed medical care. I was devastated. Day 1 of our vacation and I was sick. So we headed back to Lewisburg, WV to an urgent care facility to get checked out and run some tests. The medical staff thought that I was showing signs of an appendicitis. I was asked to be admitted to the local hospital for testing, but I decided to go back home to King, NC and go to Forsyth Medical Center in Winston Salem, so my girls could be closer to me if I were to be admitted to hospital. Once I made it to Forsyth Medical Center, the doctor and staff on hand performed a series of tests and scans and dtermined that I had diverticulitis in a servere form and that my colon had perferated and ruptured causing me to be septic. At this point I was in a severe state of sickness which was life threatening and had to be rushed into emergency surgery to cut out the diseased part of my colon/intestine and perform a colostomy to save my life. After several hours of surgery, the doctors and staff were able to perform the colostomy and after several days in the hospital, get me out of the traumatic state I was in due to the infection. After a 14 day stay under heavy medications and antibiotics, I was able to go home to rest, heal and get better. Due to be back within 3-6 months to do a reversal of the colostomy as long as no complications came about.
Once home, I was able to rest. I was ordered out of work and remained out of work for months. During this time, several complications came into play. The stoma that was done during the colostomy had started to die off and receeded back into my stomach. This wasn't a common thing for stomas. Come to find out, blood flow had been cut off from my stoma making it unhealthy during the surgery. An emergency surgery had to be performed again to revise the stoma opening that would allow me to use the bathroom properly. So back to the hopital I went for extended stay. More tests, drugs and monitoring. At this time I found out that abnormal amounts of scar tissue was causing my complications and that my stoma hole was closing up at a fast rate and that reversal surgery would have to be performed at 3 months rather than 6 months. I continued to stay out of work to have surgery done and heal properly. Once surgery to reverse colostomy took place, I was ordered out of work again to properly heal. November 2016, I was finally able to return to work on a restricted work status. No heavy lifting or standing long periods of the day. Happy to be back to work, I started to get back into my normal daily activities. After a few weeks, I started to have complications and couldn't use the bathroom. I was again rushed to the hospital after severe pains and vomitting for more tests. After being admitted and getting the results of the scans and tests, it was determined by the doctor caring for me that I had a blockage and would have to have emergency surgery yet again. This destroyed me and my family. Back to square one! I wasn't prepared for another colostomy, more pain and being out of work again. A friend of mine who is a surgeon in Charleston, WV got in touch with me before surgery the next day and suggestedd that I may have a stricture. He suggested balloon dialations of the strictured area instead of major surgery. I mentioned this to the doctor taking care of me and after several hesitations and an arguement, the doctor decided to agree with him and got me ready for the next days procedure to perform a dialation and not another colostomy. This is where everything with this doctor went south. The next day, I was handed over to another doctor team at Forsyth Medical Center to perform the dialation procedure. It was at this point that the doctors and staff came to a conclusion that I indeed had a stricture and not a blockage. They also determined that my reversal completed by the last doctor, who was a contracted doctor through the hospital, was done wrong and that steps needd to be taken with further surgeries to fix properly. At this point, I realized that my previous doctor had stepped away and wipedd his hands clean of me. He never tried to communicate with my new doctor team after this and even after numerous requests from the new doctors. My previous doctor basically abandoned me.
My new doctor team moved on and came up with a game plan to properly fix the issues that came from complications from previous surgeries and procedures. It was decided that a series of dialations would be done over several months to stretch the diameter of the strictured area of intestine and give it time to heal properly. They were supposed to be spaced 2-3 weeks apart. But everything didn't go as planned. After returning back to work and normal daily life, I was placed on several laxitives to keep my stool soft enough to pass through a strictured area the size of a straw. Every couple weeks I would block up again and would have to be rushed back into the hospital so they could pump my stomach, relieve pressure and perform emergency dialations. These periods of complications were very hard on me and my family. I was out of work yet again, scared with no end in sight. Doctors seemed to have no answers. They decided to do further scans and tests and found out that not only did I have a rare form of a stricture that had high amounts of scar tissuing. They found out that the first doctor, that did the reversal of my colostomy, did the reversal by attatching my intestine to the side wall of my colon instead of at the point of separation during the colostomy surgery. This puzzled the doctors as well as me. In total, I was out of work for 6 dialations of colon and 4 surgeries from July 2016 to February 2017, all under anesthesia with hospital stays and days out of work. Latest surgery was after a 7th dialation procedure attempt. This time, March 3rd 2017, the new doctor during a routine procedure, caused a good bit of bleeding and was unable to dialate the strictured area again.. They packed my stricture area for the bleeding and admitted me into hospital for monitoring. At around 3pm I started to be severely bloted and in tons of pain. The P.A that was checking in on me and my care noticed a bulge on my upper part of stomach and decided to have scans done. After scans were completed, my doctor came to my room an informed me and my wife that during the procedure when the bleeded occured, the results of the scans showed he tore a hole into the strictured part of colon and air and fecal matter, bacteria was shoved out into my abdominal cavity and that I was going septic. I had to be rushed into yet another emergency surgery. I was informed by my doctor that if surgery wan't performed that evening that I would die. So I was prepped for surgery, during which, another colostomy was done to save my life. Now Im back to square one. But this time I appear to have a healthy stoma for the colostomy with good blood fow. I have been ordered by the doctors, that due to the amount of complications I had in the past from the preious surgeries and procedures, that id would be best to stay out of work and rest for a minimum 2-3 months as long as there were no more complications. I will need to heal properly during that time for them to move on to the final surgery in 6 months. At that time, they will attempt to do another reversal to get me back to normal, hopefully with no strictures the next time. So for now, everything is going as planned and I and my family are listening to doctor's orders. I got my fingers crossed!
As you all can see, my family and I have been through a tremendous amount of pain and stress from my health issues from previous surgeries and complications that came about. No one ever needs to go through what we have been through. It has definately taken it's toll on our household. I know it's in God's hand though! At times I have wanted to give up. But my family is what keeps me moving on. The prayers and support from friends and family have came at a time when my girls and I needed them most. Thank you!People have asked what do we need??? What can we do???? They have been there to offer help in the past and being the type of people we are, we wouldn't accept it unless we absolutely had to. I thought about asking for help long and hard. Everytime, I decided not to, but now my family and I are in a huge bind. I can't go back to work for at least 2-3 months. If everything goes well, then I can get back to work and support my family. During this time, bills must be paid. I am making this GoFundme account to ask for help from my friends and family. Trust me, this isn't an easy thing for me to do. My wife is the only one working right now and we can't make it for the time I am off..Which in the future looks like I will be missing alot of work do to this surgery and the future reversal surgery. During the last 9 months, I have only been able to work 3 or so of those months total due to always being out of work and in hospital.In the future I will have at least one more surgery if there are no complications and I will be out of work for an extended period of time then too. Bills have been adding up. Mortages way behind and hospital bills are adding up in the thousands, and thats for our part we are responsible for. I also have meds and colostomy bag supplies that are not covered by insurance. I dont qualify for short term or long term disability payments for 12 months from now due to a pre-existing clause in my company's insurance plan. So I getting no pay at all. Basic daily needs aren't being met and its placing a severe amount of hardship on our family.We just cant make ends meet. We dont want to lose everything we worked so hard for! I am asking for anything you can afford to give to help us during these trying times. Again, asking for help from you all is one of the hardest things I have ever had to do. If you can find it in your heart and can help us out during these hardest of times, me and my girls would be deeply in debt to you all. All funds will be used for mortgage, utilities, food, medical supplies, medical co-pays,perscriptions, gas for appointments and all other basic daily needs for my family and I while Im out of work healing. Thank you all in advance and God bless you all! I love each and every one of you. If any of you want to help directly though us instead of this account, contact my wife Loretta Burton or me through Facebook or email/text or phone (message us for phone numbers). Or leave a comment message to contact you. We will give you our phone number and address then to contact us and/or send donations/help (since we can't place personal contact info on this public site). Alot of you already have our contact info. Go Fundme will provide basic info only. But most of you all know how to reach us anyway, if not just donate via GoFundme . All types of help will be greatly appreciated. If you can't help , please share with your friends and family, co-workers and churches, etc. Thank you again in advance for your blessings on keeping my family afloat.
As we arrived at camp, I was still having severe abdominal pains and still couldn't use the bathroom. At this point I started to feel really sick to my stomach and could barely walk a few feet or more without having to sit down and rest from the pain.My temperature was 102 degrees. It was at that point I told my wife and daughters I couldn't do this. I apologized for ruining the trip and my wife and kids said it was more important for me to go to the hospital and get checked out. Something was wrong. I needed medical care. I was devastated. Day 1 of our vacation and I was sick. So we headed back to Lewisburg, WV to an urgent care facility to get checked out and run some tests. The medical staff thought that I was showing signs of an appendicitis. I was asked to be admitted to the local hospital for testing, but I decided to go back home to King, NC and go to Forsyth Medical Center in Winston Salem, so my girls could be closer to me if I were to be admitted to hospital. Once I made it to Forsyth Medical Center, the doctor and staff on hand performed a series of tests and scans and dtermined that I had diverticulitis in a servere form and that my colon had perferated and ruptured causing me to be septic. At this point I was in a severe state of sickness which was life threatening and had to be rushed into emergency surgery to cut out the diseased part of my colon/intestine and perform a colostomy to save my life. After several hours of surgery, the doctors and staff were able to perform the colostomy and after several days in the hospital, get me out of the traumatic state I was in due to the infection. After a 14 day stay under heavy medications and antibiotics, I was able to go home to rest, heal and get better. Due to be back within 3-6 months to do a reversal of the colostomy as long as no complications came about.
Once home, I was able to rest. I was ordered out of work and remained out of work for months. During this time, several complications came into play. The stoma that was done during the colostomy had started to die off and receeded back into my stomach. This wasn't a common thing for stomas. Come to find out, blood flow had been cut off from my stoma making it unhealthy during the surgery. An emergency surgery had to be performed again to revise the stoma opening that would allow me to use the bathroom properly. So back to the hopital I went for extended stay. More tests, drugs and monitoring. At this time I found out that abnormal amounts of scar tissue was causing my complications and that my stoma hole was closing up at a fast rate and that reversal surgery would have to be performed at 3 months rather than 6 months. I continued to stay out of work to have surgery done and heal properly. Once surgery to reverse colostomy took place, I was ordered out of work again to properly heal. November 2016, I was finally able to return to work on a restricted work status. No heavy lifting or standing long periods of the day. Happy to be back to work, I started to get back into my normal daily activities. After a few weeks, I started to have complications and couldn't use the bathroom. I was again rushed to the hospital after severe pains and vomitting for more tests. After being admitted and getting the results of the scans and tests, it was determined by the doctor caring for me that I had a blockage and would have to have emergency surgery yet again. This destroyed me and my family. Back to square one! I wasn't prepared for another colostomy, more pain and being out of work again. A friend of mine who is a surgeon in Charleston, WV got in touch with me before surgery the next day and suggestedd that I may have a stricture. He suggested balloon dialations of the strictured area instead of major surgery. I mentioned this to the doctor taking care of me and after several hesitations and an arguement, the doctor decided to agree with him and got me ready for the next days procedure to perform a dialation and not another colostomy. This is where everything with this doctor went south. The next day, I was handed over to another doctor team at Forsyth Medical Center to perform the dialation procedure. It was at this point that the doctors and staff came to a conclusion that I indeed had a stricture and not a blockage. They also determined that my reversal completed by the last doctor, who was a contracted doctor through the hospital, was done wrong and that steps needd to be taken with further surgeries to fix properly. At this point, I realized that my previous doctor had stepped away and wipedd his hands clean of me. He never tried to communicate with my new doctor team after this and even after numerous requests from the new doctors. My previous doctor basically abandoned me.
My new doctor team moved on and came up with a game plan to properly fix the issues that came from complications from previous surgeries and procedures. It was decided that a series of dialations would be done over several months to stretch the diameter of the strictured area of intestine and give it time to heal properly. They were supposed to be spaced 2-3 weeks apart. But everything didn't go as planned. After returning back to work and normal daily life, I was placed on several laxitives to keep my stool soft enough to pass through a strictured area the size of a straw. Every couple weeks I would block up again and would have to be rushed back into the hospital so they could pump my stomach, relieve pressure and perform emergency dialations. These periods of complications were very hard on me and my family. I was out of work yet again, scared with no end in sight. Doctors seemed to have no answers. They decided to do further scans and tests and found out that not only did I have a rare form of a stricture that had high amounts of scar tissuing. They found out that the first doctor, that did the reversal of my colostomy, did the reversal by attatching my intestine to the side wall of my colon instead of at the point of separation during the colostomy surgery. This puzzled the doctors as well as me. In total, I was out of work for 6 dialations of colon and 4 surgeries from July 2016 to February 2017, all under anesthesia with hospital stays and days out of work. Latest surgery was after a 7th dialation procedure attempt. This time, March 3rd 2017, the new doctor during a routine procedure, caused a good bit of bleeding and was unable to dialate the strictured area again.. They packed my stricture area for the bleeding and admitted me into hospital for monitoring. At around 3pm I started to be severely bloted and in tons of pain. The P.A that was checking in on me and my care noticed a bulge on my upper part of stomach and decided to have scans done. After scans were completed, my doctor came to my room an informed me and my wife that during the procedure when the bleeded occured, the results of the scans showed he tore a hole into the strictured part of colon and air and fecal matter, bacteria was shoved out into my abdominal cavity and that I was going septic. I had to be rushed into yet another emergency surgery. I was informed by my doctor that if surgery wan't performed that evening that I would die. So I was prepped for surgery, during which, another colostomy was done to save my life. Now Im back to square one. But this time I appear to have a healthy stoma for the colostomy with good blood fow. I have been ordered by the doctors, that due to the amount of complications I had in the past from the preious surgeries and procedures, that id would be best to stay out of work and rest for a minimum 2-3 months as long as there were no more complications. I will need to heal properly during that time for them to move on to the final surgery in 6 months. At that time, they will attempt to do another reversal to get me back to normal, hopefully with no strictures the next time. So for now, everything is going as planned and I and my family are listening to doctor's orders. I got my fingers crossed!
As you all can see, my family and I have been through a tremendous amount of pain and stress from my health issues from previous surgeries and complications that came about. No one ever needs to go through what we have been through. It has definately taken it's toll on our household. I know it's in God's hand though! At times I have wanted to give up. But my family is what keeps me moving on. The prayers and support from friends and family have came at a time when my girls and I needed them most. Thank you!People have asked what do we need??? What can we do???? They have been there to offer help in the past and being the type of people we are, we wouldn't accept it unless we absolutely had to. I thought about asking for help long and hard. Everytime, I decided not to, but now my family and I are in a huge bind. I can't go back to work for at least 2-3 months. If everything goes well, then I can get back to work and support my family. During this time, bills must be paid. I am making this GoFundme account to ask for help from my friends and family. Trust me, this isn't an easy thing for me to do. My wife is the only one working right now and we can't make it for the time I am off..Which in the future looks like I will be missing alot of work do to this surgery and the future reversal surgery. During the last 9 months, I have only been able to work 3 or so of those months total due to always being out of work and in hospital.In the future I will have at least one more surgery if there are no complications and I will be out of work for an extended period of time then too. Bills have been adding up. Mortages way behind and hospital bills are adding up in the thousands, and thats for our part we are responsible for. I also have meds and colostomy bag supplies that are not covered by insurance. I dont qualify for short term or long term disability payments for 12 months from now due to a pre-existing clause in my company's insurance plan. So I getting no pay at all. Basic daily needs aren't being met and its placing a severe amount of hardship on our family.We just cant make ends meet. We dont want to lose everything we worked so hard for! I am asking for anything you can afford to give to help us during these trying times. Again, asking for help from you all is one of the hardest things I have ever had to do. If you can find it in your heart and can help us out during these hardest of times, me and my girls would be deeply in debt to you all. All funds will be used for mortgage, utilities, food, medical supplies, medical co-pays,perscriptions, gas for appointments and all other basic daily needs for my family and I while Im out of work healing. Thank you all in advance and God bless you all! I love each and every one of you. If any of you want to help directly though us instead of this account, contact my wife Loretta Burton or me through Facebook or email/text or phone (message us for phone numbers). Or leave a comment message to contact you. We will give you our phone number and address then to contact us and/or send donations/help (since we can't place personal contact info on this public site). Alot of you already have our contact info. Go Fundme will provide basic info only. But most of you all know how to reach us anyway, if not just donate via GoFundme . All types of help will be greatly appreciated. If you can't help , please share with your friends and family, co-workers and churches, etc. Thank you again in advance for your blessings on keeping my family afloat.
Organizer
Stephen Burton II
Organizer
King, NC