Last September, our family's lives took an unexpected turn when I had to call the ambulance for my husband. He was complaining that his heart was racing and he was feeling weak. When the ambulance arrived, his BPM was 280 a minute. On the way to the hospital, the meds they were giving him to slow his heart rate were not responding, so they had no other option than to defibrillate his heart. After several tests, the cardiologist was able to diagnose him with a rare congenital heart condition called Wolff-Parkinson-White Syndrome. Jesse was life-flighted into rush surgery where he underwent a 4 1/2 hour heart procedure.

After a slow recovery, Jesse started noticing severe pain and weakness in both of his arms and hands, starting from his cervical spine. The pain he was experiencing was increasing from a pre-existing neck injury that he was not able to get fixed due to heart complications that we now know were congenital. My husband has been struggling with this pain for over a decade, and now he is awaiting a bi-level cervical neck fusion to prevent future nerve damage and the risk of being paralyzed. It is a complicated surgery due to his heart condition, so he will be traveling to OHSU to have the procedure done. The neurologist wants him to do 6 weeks of physical therapy to strengthen his body to prepare for the surgery.

With all this being said, this last year has been extremely hard on our family. I have been the only one working to support our family of 4 since September. We have exhausted all of our financial resources at this time, and we still have several months of uncertainty left until Jesse is strong and healthy enough to return to work. We are asking anybody who is able to contribute to help support our family on this journey. We are so thankful for anything that can help us in this difficult time. Thank you for taking the time to read our story. We would be so grateful if you could share this along to others. Much love from the Johnson family.