On June 7th, just before 4a.m., Bryan (45) had a stroke.

Backing the story up for some context....

In August 2003, only five months after buying our little fixer-upper house, Bryan was diagnosed with a brain tumor (oligoastrocytoma). He had brain surgery early September. The following December, he started having tonic-clonic (grand mal) seizures and has been on various (sometimes very expensive) medications twice a day ever since.

Bryan works overnights in shipping, a very physical job that requires driving a forklift. Luckily, on June 7th, he had requested the night off to flip his sleep schedule for his niece's graduation party. When I (Susan, wife) thought he was getting out of bed to go to the bathroom and felt him kind of shaking, my mind immediately thought seizure. Having been with him for more than 20 years, I've helped him through more than a few of them. Our bedroom was very dark, and I flipped on the closet light to see him better, but it was not, in my mind, a typical seizure. After about 30 seconds to a minute, I called 911 and told them Bryan looked like he was having "a really weird seizure" and wasn't coming out of it. Our 9-year-old son was awoken from his room and rushed in. I told him to open the front door and wave his arms when he saw the flashing lights. I could hear him yelling "Over here, over here". Luckily, not only did the paramedics arrive, but also a police officer, and he took our son into the bathroom and closed the door so he wouldn't see his dad being carried out.

We drove behind the ambulance to United Hospital in St. Paul. When I finally got to see Bryan, I couldn't understand anything he was saying, but he was somewhat responsive. It wasn't until the next day that it was determined to be a stroke.

Unfortunately, last year during Bryan's open-enrollment at his job, something on their end (his company's) went wrong and when he changed something for his coverage, it was added and then the whole policy/coverage was dropped altogether. The company didn't catch it, and Bryan was informed about the (huge) mistake after the open-enrollment period had ended. He had to go find his own individual coverage and pay for it himself. He found a policy, but when he went to use it for his yearly MRI for the brain cancer, nothing was covered. He was stuck with the entire bill, so he stopped paying on that policy back in March and hadn't found new coverage yet that he could afford, and I couldn't add him to my policy, either.

I received the first bill while Bryan was still being treated at the hospital, and it was almost 70k. That doesn't include his ambulance ride, the rest of his stay in the hospital or therapies he may need.

He needs help. We need help. I know he's worried about not being able to work anymore. I only work part-time so that I can take care of our younger son (older son is off at college). Now, I have to work less, because I have to take care of Bryan, too. I'm his "therapist" when it comes to speech, physical and occupational therapy, since we were told it was $375 per session since he didn't have coverage for out-patient therapy. He still needs help eating, bathing and taking his medications now that he's at home.