My name is Vanessa and I am Sue Burns Geyer’s daughter-in-law. I am also a nurse practitioner. My mother- in-law is the most giving person I know. She has never met a stranger who she wasn’t willing to help. And she is the kind of person who would give you the shirt off her back. She is like a second mother to me.

 

Our family (her husband, her son/my husband, myself and our 3 young children/her granddaughters) was on vacation in Florida. On Friday July 22, while in Disney World, Sue began to feel nauseated, tired, and generally not feeling well, she decided to cut her visit short and return to our hotel to rest.

 

I texted with her throughout the day to check up on her. After a few hours I decided to return to the hotel to check on her, while my husband (her son) and one daughter stayed at the park for the evening fireworks show. A short time after I, two of her girls, my sister and her two children all returned, Sue started having trouble breathing, she turned gray and started gasping for air. I checked for her pulse, and when I did not find one I started performing CPR with the assistance of my sister, while her husband found an AED that we used to shock her heart to start it beating again. In the meantime, the paramedics were called, arrived and took over.

 

She was transported to Celebration Hospital in Celebration, Florida where she has remained. She is in ICU on a ventilator to assist with keeping her airway open while she breaths on her own. Sue does periodically open her eyes. And an MRI shows that her brain function is normal. Sadly, we had to fly back home to Maryland on Friday, July 29th, as scheduled, but without the head of our family. Her son arrived home late Friday night, to get into a car early Saturday morning to drive back to Florida to be with his mother until decisions can be made to return his loving and kind mother back to her family in Maryland.

 

Sue is the sole breadwinner in her family. Her husband is on disability for COPD and unable to work.  She is not able to work now, there is no money coming in to pay for her health insurance or any of her household bills, let alone to cover the medical bills that are accumulating daily. Sue’s family and friends live in and around Maryland so this is even more difficult because she is so far away from her support group. We need to raise money to transport her back to Maryland and were told that the cost will be between $30,000 and $50,000 to do this. All monies raised will be used to return Sue to her family and friends and keep her household running while she recuperates from this tragedy. As well as keeping her health insurance paid and helping with the ever growing medical bills.

thank you!