David Bleck's Spinal Surgery & Living Expenses

My name is Cameron Kreager and I’m raising money for a dear friend of mine, David Bleck.

Over the last year, so much has happened in his life physically that is piling up and has put him in the hospital awaiting emergency spinal surgery. Earlier in the year, he damaged his lungs from smoke inhalation while rescuing some people from a burning vehicle. He has been unable to do much of anything physical since. Shortness of breath has kept him from being able to do a lot of the normal things life demands, especially when it comes to raising three children as a single dad.

On top of that, he has had a lot of back pain that was chalked up to overuse or twisting the wrong way. But it’s likely past injuries were flaring up, which leads us to the necessity of this fund campaign and to the situation he finds himself in today.

The weekend of November 30, David was visiting some friends for the holidays and fell from a chair. That caused some excruciating pain that he went to urgent care for, and on their advice, tried managing with light pain meds and just “toughing it out” while it healed. The pain was not letting up, so Dave went to a chiropractor, and unfortunately, the adjustments just added to the pain. The following weekend, he came to visit my family in Lansing. He was in so much pain that we demanded that he not try driving back home, so he stayed the night at our house. The pain got to a point where he was barely able to walk and unable to get out of the chair. As the pain increased, my wife and I urged him to get checked out again before he tried to drive back home. Sunday night, Dec 8, I drove him to the ER, and he has been there ever since.

Since being in the hospital, we’ve discovered:

- Severe Spinal Compression (T7-T8)

- Narrowing in Spine (L3-S1)

- Discs Bulging (L3-S1)

- Moderate Spinal Canal Narrowing (T3-T4)

- Spinal Stenosis

- 5mm Kidney Stone (to top it all off)

There have been multiple issues with getting him into an MRI machine to get the proper scans needed for surgery. So, he’s been on a 4-hour medication rotation to manage the pain while the doctors figure out a plan. After a butchered attempt for deeper CT scans, it’s back to the drawing board.

The whole year has been really hard on Dave. And to add insult to injury, now he’ll have medical bills on top of being out of work for a few months while he heals from surgery. He’s got three kids relying on his income, plus a new mortgage, and his mother just moved in with him.

The funds requested are specifically to:

1.) Help supplement the income he’s going to lose over the next few months. Once he finally gets this surgery, the recovery time will be lengthy and will keep him from working.

2.) Help pay for extensive upcoming medical bills.

Thank you from the bottom of my heart to anyone who is able to spare a bit to help out my friend. And if you’re not able to help monetarily, I know that he covets your prayers.

I will try to keep this page updated as his healthcare journey continues.

Blessings,

Cameron Kreager