Stuart Young's Medical Fund

Stuart Young is a Camden, Maine, native. He was a star basketball player in high school, worked at his father's fish market and is Camden's unofficial historian, next to official town historian Barbie Dyer. Stuart has also worked and volunteered several decades at the Camden Snow Bowl. For the past 10 years he has served as vice-chairman of the US National Toboggan Championships, and is the official "Chute Master." If he isn't pulling the lever to release your Toboggan into the chute, he is overseeing the person doing it.

For the past five years, Stuart has been dealing with an injury to his foot, one that has refused to get better. This past year, he has been hospitalized more than once to battle serious infections caused by the injury. He was most recently hospitalized Nov. 28, and there he has remained to this day.

Urged on by the danger of additional infections doing further damage to his overall health, doctors today performed a major surgery to hopefully finally end his pain and to cease the persistent issues this injury has been causing. I just spoke with his brother at 6 p.m. and he said that Stuart's surgery went well, he is in recovery and due back to his room soon tonight.

Stuart is facing a long road to get back upright and walking again, and as chairman of the Toboggan Committee, and someone who cherishes my friend, our friend, Stuart, I am setting up this campaign to garner support from his friends and fans to help offset the tens of thousands of dollars in medical bills he is facing. My hope is that Stuart will feel your love and good wishes and also take the doctor's advice and spend a couple weeks in rehab, letting skilled people take care of him while he heals and works on learning how to walk in a new way. He deserves and needs the care and comfort that only rehab can give him.

All of this takes money, and Stuart is facing not only a tough mental and physical road ahead, but he is doing it with no health insurance, no retirement savings, no stashed lottery winnings. He is a private and proud Mainer, and I know he has more friends out there than he realizes, friends who will help in any way they can.

If you can donate even just $1, please do. But if you can't, drop him a card or send some healing thoughts. It all adds up in the end.

Thanks in advance for reading this, and for anything you can do to help Stuart. If you prefer to contact me privately, you can find me on FB, where I will you give you my email and phone contacts, or reach out to me here.

Holly