Support Jeff Mushin's Journey to Heart Recovery

May 19th may have been an ordinary day, but for our friend and family member, Jeff, it was like no other. May 19th, Jeff had a massive heart attack, a widow maker as its called. Jeff lost his dad when he was 16 to this heart attack, and his heredity has wreaked havoc in his life for decades. The kids figure he is on life number 6 in cat years. Heart attack, stents, heart attack, triple by pass surgery, collapsed bypass graft causing another heart attack. Hypoxic events that caused him to pass out behind the wheel while driving. Luckily Linnea was in the car and shocked him back. Pacemaker placement ensued, and most recently the widow maker. Its truly a miracle that he's alive.

After this event, Linnea was told there were 3 options for his advanced heart failure. Medication support, an lvad heart pump, or a heart transplant. Somehow, Jeff has managed to come out of this needing only medication intervention. Not to say this has been easy, he was on life support for almost 3 weeks. He's had 2 strokes and a brain bleed. An intestinal bleed that needed surgery, an aneurysm that obliterated an artery in his heart. He has a mass on a heart valve and blood clots in his upper left extremity area. He's had to have a tracheostomy to assist with his breathing and a stomach G-tube to provide nourishment. Jeff has always been a very strong person, physically and mentally, and anyone that really knows him knows his strong/sharp sense of humor. Because he has been bedridden for 6+ weeks, he's lost a lot of weight and his muscles are atrophied to the point of needing acute care rehabilitation once he is able to leave the hospital. He is making progress, but the long term ramifications of this are still unknown.

As family, we've delayed setting up a go-fund me page, because we were hoping that it wouldn't be necessary. We are ever hopeful that a full, complete recovery may be possible. However, at this time we understand that while he is making progress, Jeff's medical needs will remain high for a very long time.

The overall purpose of this is to provide financial support in any way that it may be needed. This could be help with insurance co-pays, long-term lost wages for both Jeff and Linnea, and possible modifications that could be needed to their home when Jeff returns.

We don't know what the future holds for Jeff yet, but we do know he has a lot of people rooting for his full recovery and a lot of people that love him.