Support for Garen
Donation protected
Our family’s journey has been a long and complicated one! I will do my best to paraphrase. Some of you know that Garen’s health concerns started back in April. While climbing a ladder to reach more work materials, he fell and broke his right leg and ankle as well as his left foot. After orthopedic surgery and lots of physical therapy, these injuries left him completely wheelchair bound for about 3 months. A combination of the all the trauma and stress, a surgical infection and decreased mobility really took a toll on his body. He was admitted to Anderson Hospital on August 6th for some concerning lab results and hasn’t been home since.
Over the next few weeks of being inpatient it became clear that he would not recover as quickly as he hoped when multiple organ systems began to show significant distress. Finally, we felt that we had gotten our big break and on August 30, after 24 days of being inpatient, he was discharged to a skilled nursing facility to continue rehab for his legs and go to dialysis as an outpatient.
After only 10 days in the nursing facility, he began to show signs of bleeding and infection. He was again hospitalized and after 8 days in Anderson Hospital he was finally transferred to STL. We have been battling several different infections and complications since then and have been bouncing back and forth quite a bit from the ICU and general floors. It seems every time we make progress in one area, another causes extensive complications.
My grandmother Carolyn, his girlfriend Jenn and myself along with our family have been splitting up shifts at the hospital everyday since he was admitted so that he spends as little time alone as possible. We have all done our best to reprioritize our lives in order to be with him as much as we can and while we wouldn’t have it any other way, it has pulled us from our normal work routines making the financial impact of this experience even greater. This has required primarily meals on the go, lots of gas, sleepless nights, and missed work - with no foreseeable end in sight. To make matters worse, we recently received news that due to the length of time this current admission has taken in addition to the many others this year, at the beginning of next month he will lose all health insurance through his employer. With no other option immediately available to us and hospital bills already beginning to pour in in addition to the already strained day to day living expenses, we are reaching out to our family and friends for any help you would be willing to give. We so appreciate the amazing family and friends who have already reached out to us with kind words and offers of help. Garen himself is not up for much communication these days as he is saving all his strength to heal, so we respectfully ask for any questions or well wishes to be passed through Jenn or myself. Anyone who knows him, knows that Garen is quite a fighter and he has shown that to be very true over these last few months and our prayer is that he only gets stronger to show us all truly what a fighter he is. Please keep our family and primarily Garen in your thoughts and prayers during this time!
- Jessica (Garen’s daughter)
Over the next few weeks of being inpatient it became clear that he would not recover as quickly as he hoped when multiple organ systems began to show significant distress. Finally, we felt that we had gotten our big break and on August 30, after 24 days of being inpatient, he was discharged to a skilled nursing facility to continue rehab for his legs and go to dialysis as an outpatient.
After only 10 days in the nursing facility, he began to show signs of bleeding and infection. He was again hospitalized and after 8 days in Anderson Hospital he was finally transferred to STL. We have been battling several different infections and complications since then and have been bouncing back and forth quite a bit from the ICU and general floors. It seems every time we make progress in one area, another causes extensive complications.
My grandmother Carolyn, his girlfriend Jenn and myself along with our family have been splitting up shifts at the hospital everyday since he was admitted so that he spends as little time alone as possible. We have all done our best to reprioritize our lives in order to be with him as much as we can and while we wouldn’t have it any other way, it has pulled us from our normal work routines making the financial impact of this experience even greater. This has required primarily meals on the go, lots of gas, sleepless nights, and missed work - with no foreseeable end in sight. To make matters worse, we recently received news that due to the length of time this current admission has taken in addition to the many others this year, at the beginning of next month he will lose all health insurance through his employer. With no other option immediately available to us and hospital bills already beginning to pour in in addition to the already strained day to day living expenses, we are reaching out to our family and friends for any help you would be willing to give. We so appreciate the amazing family and friends who have already reached out to us with kind words and offers of help. Garen himself is not up for much communication these days as he is saving all his strength to heal, so we respectfully ask for any questions or well wishes to be passed through Jenn or myself. Anyone who knows him, knows that Garen is quite a fighter and he has shown that to be very true over these last few months and our prayer is that he only gets stronger to show us all truly what a fighter he is. Please keep our family and primarily Garen in your thoughts and prayers during this time!
- Jessica (Garen’s daughter)
Organizer
Jessica Carroll
Organizer
Granite City, IL
