Support Corie's Recovery from Heart and Kidney Issues

My name is Chris and on July 3rd, my wife Corie went to the E.R. and was admitted for what we thought might be congestive heart failure. After a few days of tests, the doctors discovered that she was having kidney trouble as well. When they thought her kidney numbers were good enough, they did a heart catheterization.

The results were not what we were expecting. She had 4 blockages and was going to require a quadruple bypass open-heart surgery. While running other labs in preparation for her surgery, they discovered she has a blood disorder that causes her blood to clot at low temperatures. The heart has to be cooled when doing the open-heart surgery, so she was already at high risk.

The surgery was performed with 4 bypasses and it seemed to be a success, but her heart was in shock and did not function properly after the surgery. She was also placed on continuous dialysis because of her kidney functions.

After a few days of being hooked up to 11 different IV drips and the dialysis machine, nothing was working. She would wake up with massive panic attacks and try to take her oxygen off. The decision was made to sedate her and put her on the ventilator so she could rest and heal, and hopefully, her heart and kidneys would start functioning properly.

This did not happen and her medical team thought they were out of options and wanted to send her to a facility that had other options or where she could possibly get a transplant. She was sent to the University of Kentucky by ambulance on a 3-hour ride away from home because the weather was bad and she could not be flown out.

The next day at UK, her heart began working properly and they started taking her off a lot of the meds she was on and removed her from the ventilator. She was taken off continuous dialysis and then went 3 times a week, but her kidneys were still not working properly. We remained at UK for 20 days total, where she had to miss the birth of her first grandchild, Octavia. She was discharged to go to a rehab center in Huntington where she still had dialysis 3 times a week and was there for 14 days.

She got to come home on August 18th. She had a follow-up visit with her surgeon and has been readmitted to the hospital. They are treating all the wounds she has from the operations and she is still receiving dialysis 3 times a week.

She will not be able to work for a long time, if ever. She has been off work for 2 months. I have missed just short of 2 months of work being with her. The bills are piling up with no chance of getting them all paid and I have to cover both our insurance premiums out of pocket from the time we have been off. If she loses her insurance, we won't be able to pay for any of the dialysis out of pocket or home health for her wound vac.

I have returned to work and been back off this week with her in the hospital but will go back this week.

We were squeaking by before with both of us working but will never make it on my income alone. I know times are tough for everyone. I'm just trying to not lose the insurance and my house and car. Every dollar helps.