Support Julie's Recovery and Ease Her Medical Burden

I'm Terry, husband of my wife Julie for almost 33yrs. Starting in January 2025, Julie has been having medical issues that started off with a bang and just keep on giving. Since then, thru her last event that ended up in her having a stroke, we've accumulated a large amount of medical bills. Neither of us have health insurance because my work doesn't offer it and to pay out of pocket would take most of my income (we don't qualify for any assistance). We've since worked with most of the providers (still don't have the largest one) and have one in particular that was unwilling to take payments or reduce the bill. We've already exhausted all of our savings to cover things here as well as a heart attack she had in 2022, so we have no way of getting this one paid easily. So now we are turning to ask for help to at least get this account out of the way before it is sent to collections. Every dollar given will be used for this bill and should more than the appx $3500 come in, it will go towards the next medical bill. Julie's condition currently is stable, but the added stress of all this is taking a toll. For those that don't know the whole situation, I will document it below. We appreciate any consideration and hope to one day get back to a point where we can be on the other end giving what we can. Thank you!

She was hospitalized early January after being taken into the ED at our local hospital after a week of continual worsening health at home started with vomiting over and over for several days. I couldn't get her to agree to go in and the worse it got the stronger her resolve. It wasn't until it was clear that she could no longer advocate for herself that I was able to take her in. Turned out that she was in severe ketoacidosis, dehydration and moments away from coma. She was not diabetic, to our knowledge, prior. During her stay, it was found that she had aspirated during one of her vomiting events and they needed to suction to clear her lungs. There was some complications from that and for a time they thought there might have been damage to her vocal cords because she had no voice. Took 7 days in ICU and 3 in general for them to get her to a point to return home, voice was returning slowly (but there is more on this later). Now at home, insulin dependent (diabetes treatment was not new to us, just not her), things looked better for only a short while.

She had 2 more occasions of getting violently sick that ended up in another round of ketoacidosis with dehydration and hospitalization thru the month of March. Appears that when she gets sick, she becomes insulin resistant no matter how much we pump in. In all that mess, Julie was starting to have issues with swallowing. Things were getting "stuck" in her throat, below the airway. Pills were even becoming an issue. She would try to force it down with water only to fill her esophagus so full she started to gurgle and had to force everything back up. Not an easy task when your throat isn't working correctly. It was noted during one of her stays during a CT scan that she had what appeared to be esophagitis, possibly fungal.

So now, we have this underlying esophagitis issue that is always at play. One of the Dr's decided that she needed to see the throat surgeon and have an endoscopy to try to get this fixed. This happened in mid-April. The scope of her esophagus looked awful, all the way down. The Dr called it "angry". They took biopsies and the results were nothing extraordinary. So, they put her on some antibiotics and some sprays to try to get it to heal. Went for a follow-up with no real changes here and the Dr basically said he's having to take guesses at this point. He then prescribed some acid blockers thinking maybe acid is getting back from the stomach and causing the issue to persist. She is still on this regiment and there is no change to this day, months later.... Next follow-up isn't until Oct. This is a long time to deal with not being able to eat normally and take medications....

Most of the month of May was uneventful (thank goodness !) and so she wanted to get out of the house- being in bed all day in a tiny home is not anyone's idea of fun. So, we decided to take a drive down to San Diego (From Salem, OR) to attend an event for a club I'm in. We arrived on the 13th, all was well. She decided after dinner that she was going to stay at the hotel because she was a little tired and that she would go to the event the next day with me. That night, she started getting violently sick again. This lasted thru the night and next morning. By afternoon, she was full on NOT GOOD. So, I packed everything up, loaded up the dogs (they came with) and we started heading back. I didn't want to have her get stuck down there at a hospital.

We made it almost to Coalinga, a small rural town in Southern California when she said that she couldn't make it, we needed a hospital. Turned out there was one in that town. This was night of Saturday the 14th. By morning they had decided she had a mild case of pneumonia and that she was having heart issues that they were not equipped to handle and that she needed to be medevac'd somewhere else. I suggested north not south to get us at least a little closer to home. They ended up sending her by Helo to Good Samaritan in San Jose.

Once in San Jose, they did more tests and the cardiologist said that while everything in the test showed she was in cardiac arrest, she didn't have any physical symptoms, so he felt that those results were just symptoms of another issue. He held off on doing an angiogram but said he would likely do one at some point. Tuesday the 17th rolls along with no clear answers, so he decided to perform the angiogram just to rule out an actual heart issue. Was supposed to take 15min-45min depending on whether he found something. I decided to take the dogs back to the hotel once they started getting her ready so they could rest and figured I'd go back once I heard she was out. 2-1/2 hrs go by and I heard nothing. I feared something was wrong, so I loaded the dogs up and started the 10min drive back to the hospital. While en route, I got a call from the nurse that said I needed to return NOW, make it quick.... (my heart sank)

I returned to her room to find her laying on the bed looking straight up talking 100mph saying no real words, well once in a while a real word would slip out. She wouldn't respond to any of the people in the room (there were at least 15 along with a neurologist on a remote robot thingy). They asked me if she was normally like this (their thinking maybe anesthesia caused) but no, she's never been like that. She talks a lot, but never nonsense. So that confirmed for them that she had a stroke. At that point the cardiologist called for me on one of the nurse's phone and told me he was pretty sure he nicked something going in during the angiogram causing the clot to send up giving the stroke. They then did a few quick tests to ensure she could take the stroke medication - if on blood thinners you can't because it is basically a super blood thinner itself. She was on one when she arrived on Sunday, but thankfully she'd been off of it long enough.

After a week in NICU there, her cognitive state seemed to be improving. She was struggling for words now and then, but way better than jibberish. The therapist felt that her condition would continue to slowly improve over time and they decided to release her. Still no answers on anything else other than she was diagnosed with broken heart syndrome, but she was stable enough to travel. So we started our 10 hour drive home....

Since that stay, she's been basically steady on most things. No improvements at all regarding the throat. Cognitive issues persist and feel like they are maybe a little worse than anticipated as far as being able to process thoughts. Her neuropathy that came along with the original diabetes ketoacidosis was now in full force causing immense pain in her feet up to her calves and her hands. About two weeks ago she was showing signs of something not quite right and I got a text that day from her that was total jibberish. I asked my son to check on her, which he's been doing while I have been at work, and he reported that she seemed overly tired. So, I rushed home to find her not very lucid. Talking with an ED Dr on the phone, it was determined that she likely had another micro stroke. There was no clear need to take her in because two things fighting us were not knowing exactly when it happened and the fact that one of her meds is a blood thinner, so she couldn't take another treatment anyway. Advice was to bring her in in a day or two if she was not improving which she did.

Today, still trying to get a hold of the neuropathy pain, trying to deal with the throat issue every time she eats or takes her meds, constantly feeling sluggish (likely the heart issue), it is all wearing on her. The added stress of the bills is not helping and perhaps this is one place that if we were able to get some small relief, it might help her day to day outlook.

We greatly appreciate anything here.