Support Kevin Way's Urgent Spinal Surgery

I’m starting this GoFundMe in support of my dad, Kevin Way who is out of work and in desperate need of major spine surgery. Out of privacy and respect for my dad I will not be sharing any pictures or anything of him suffering in pain, the photo used is from August 2019. Here’s a brief story of everything that has led us to this point:

My dad had his first diskectomy in 2009 on his L4 L5 vertebrae. Since then he has had three other diskectomies, one on the L4 L5 vertebrae and two on the L5 S1 vertebrae. The two on the L5 S1 vertebrate occurred within the last 12 months and the surgeon, whom of which is very well known and very well trusted amongst the medical community, expressed how drastic the next surgery on this vertebrae would be, a spinal fusion. This was even written in the patient notes to make it aware to everyone involved. While some disk herniations won’t cause pain, my dad’s herniations have always resulted in pressure being put on surrounding nerves. Due to the location of the herniation, the disk puts pressure on the surrounding nerve causing extreme pain from his glute down to his toes. He describes the pain as being stabbed and having the knife twisted in his glute, his leg breaking over and over, his calf having electric shocks sent constantly running down it resulting in severe muscle spasms visible by looking at his calf, his achilles tendon being slashed and squeezed, and needles being shoved into his heel. The longer the herniation is present putting pressure on the nerve the worse the pain gets and his foot has become numb as nerve damage begins to occur. Common with back injuries, this has begun to effect his bladder as well resulting in him needing to relieve himself very frequently despite taking in minimal liquids. However, since his right foot has gone numb from the nerve damage being caused he has extreme difficulty walking to the bathroom resulting in him becoming a fall risk and falling three times as of today (12/14/2024).

On July 2nd 2024 my dad had his last diskectomy on his L5 S1 vertebrae leaving very minimal disk left and a lot of scar tissue near the nerve. Due to the severity of this my dad took a month medical leave from work to allow time to properly heal in hopes of avoiding a spinal fusion, which would take away the two activities he loves the most golf and basketball. The owner of the company my dad worked for was reaching the age of retirement and put in place a business deal with my dad stating my dad would take over the company for him once he was ready to retire. This was a plan that had been in the works for 8 years prior to this surgery and my dad had already begun the process of handling the all of the business and communication. While my dad was on his medical leave he was unrightfully let go with no notice, leaving him without an income for 6 months. We still have not received justification for this other than my dad could not buy the company out right, which there was a deal set in place that would ensure the owner of the company would receive the money over several years.

After being let go my dad decided that since he had over 10 years of experience in this field, on both the business end and physical labor end, that he would begin the process of starting his own business. Over the years of working at this company my dad proved himself to be a hard worker, determined to do a job the correct way, and trustworthy to both his employees and managers and VPs of major construction sites resulting in developing relationships with many developers who looked forward to doing business with him.

On November 2nd 2024 my dad was immobilized from the pain of the third herniation of his L5 and S1 disk. When this first occurred he had a TeleHealth appointment with his neurosurgeon to discuss the next steps since he could not make a 3 hour car ride for an in person appointment. My dad was recommended to get an MRI and then discuss the next steps, the spinal fusion. The MRI showed the scar tissue putting pressure on the same nerve once again due to the small left over disk being herniated from doing charitable work to help out family and friends without being asked, but offering. Before we could even schedule an appointment for surgery, the insurance from the company who unrightfully let go of my dad ran out. Due to this happening in the middle of November and his yearly income being too high to receive state medical coverage, him and my mom were out of insurance. My parents began to do research and spending days on the phone with insurance companies trying to determine which medical plan they could purchase, completely out of pocket, that would cover the spinal fusion. They were able to find an insurance that would kick in on December 1st 2024 and purchased the plan paying out of pocket for one month of coverage, resulting in losing a good portion of the money set aside to jumpstart my dad’s business. However, since my dad’s surgeon is out of state the insurance would not cover any care provided by him.

On December 2nd my dad had an appointment with a new neurosurgeon to try to get this herniation taken care of. Due to the herniation being untreated for over a month at this point, my dad was in extreme pain and could only be slightly comfortable lying down on his stomach resulting in his shoulders being in pain and his elbows becoming raw. Even doing this, he was still in so much pain resulting in not being able to sit up right at all anymore. Since he can’t sit up right, he had to lay down in the hatchback of an SUV with the back seats folded down to get to this appointment and get wheeled in on a stretcher to see the doctor. The doctor in office, a pain management doctor, sent my dad to the hospital affiliated with the practice to see the neurosurgeon immediately.

My dad was admitted into the hospital under pain management as no pain meds could provide relief anymore. My dad received an MRI at admission and was provided pain medication to help manage the pain while lying down. The hospital and neurosurgeon were fully aware of the severity of this situation. Two PAs working under the neurosurgeon specifically expressed to us that based on what they have seen they also believe a spinal fusion is needed. However, upon the first meeting with the neurosurgeon my dad was told he would be discharged and sent home requiring him to go back and forth from home to his office to “prove” this surgery was needed despite having the documentation from the previous surgeon and seeing my dad lose his strength in his leg and foot. The hospital and surgeon were fully aware of the amount of pain my dad is in and how he has to unsafely be transported and still wanted to discharge. Upon hearing this, my dad honestly expressed with the staff how he felt unsafe physically(unable to walk) and mentally(suicidal) going home resulting in him staying at this hospital for a week and half. While at the hospital he was provided with oxycodin, morphine, Valum, Gabapentine, as well as other muscle relaxers to only calm the pain enough to allow him to lay in the hospital bed comfortably.

While in the hospital, we were consistently lied to by the neurosurgeon, nurse manager, and case manager for a week and a half. The neurosurgeon had been directly asked if he was comfortable performing a spinal fusion on a patient that had previously received two surgeries on the same disk by a different neurosurgeon and told my parents that he was comfortable and wanted to do the surgery(December 3rd 2024). We were specifically told that we were waiting for insurance approval to get this surgery done and it would be done during this hospital stay(December 4th 2024). On Thursday, December 12th 2024, 10 days after being given hope my dad will receive relief after over a month of feeling like his being tortured constantly, we were told he could “not receive the surgery as an in patient.”

On December 13th 2024, we planned to have my dad discharged and come home for the weekend to go back to the hospital the following week for surgery. Due this, the hospital stopped providing morphine to my dad the night of December 12th 2024 resulting in the pain not being manageable anymore. The morning or December 13th 2024 my mom and i went to the hospital prepared to discharge my dad and drive him home in the trunk of our SUV with no seatbelt (which the hospital was aware of). When we went to the room to see my dad has was mentally and physically unwell from the amount of pain he was in, but we were still hopeful the surgery would take place the following week. My dad informed my mom and I that he fell that morning before we got there and was never assessed. Not even an hour after we got that he fell again after asking for assistance going to and getting back to bed from the bathroom, this time really hard. There were no nurses in the room to assist him coming back and my mom was speaking to the nurse assigned to him in the hallway. If I weren’t there when he fell he would have fit his head on the floor and multiple metal items would have fallen on his head. Immediately multiple nurses and the nurse manage came to assist. However, we were confronted with a nurse who gave us extreme attitude and was unhelpful. After this fall, which everyone was informed was due to the herniation and from the nerve never recovering from the previous surgery resulting in his right foot being almost completely numb. My mom was mentally not well enough to express what we needed from this point so I had to take over the situation to advocate for my dad and demanded we thar needed to speak to the neurosurgeon, case manager, and head nurse immediately. They ordered him to go to an ultrasound to check for blood clots to cover themselves rather than doing a full assessment to ensure there was no further damage done.

While my dad was out for the ultrasound the neurosurgeon came to speak to my mom and I, without my dad present. The neurosurgeon told my mom and I that he will not be doing the surgery because “he is not comfortable” to perform the spinal fusion, after he told my parents multiple times that he would perform it. He specifically told my mom and I that “he doesn’t see a clear way surgery will fix this” (another lie we will come back to late). The neurosurgeon talked down to my mom and I the whole time ignoring any questions we had. He had told we my dad would be medically transferred to a hospital in the Bronx, a hospital that is an hour and 15 minutes away from our home, to receive further treatment. The neurosurgeon then left us alone, never coming to speak with us again.

Afterwards, we were informed that the hospital in the Bronx will not be accepting my dad as his case is “not an emergency.” The only compassionate and helpful doctor we encountered in this whole stay was the floor doctor, who went out of her way to try to get us medically transferred to another hospital, which was also unsuccessful. Due to this, we were forced to have my dad discharged unsafely with the hospital fully aware of this and willingly sending him home. No one from the hospital came to check on my dad’s mental state even though they were fully aware that he had expressed he was having suicidal thoughts about going home to suffer from the pain again and being told by my dad that the thought of being dead gave him more relief than continuing to live like this. The hospital knew how much pain my dad was in at time of discharge so they had nurses holding elevator doors to ensure the fastest discharge possible and watched as I held my dad to avoid another fall as he climbed into the back of our SUV screaming in extreme pain.

We are currently back home with no answers and my dad is in even worse pain than he previously was. While home, my parents were looking over the report the neurosurgeon wrote and in his notes he expressed that surgery is needed to fix this issues but he will not perform it, once again contradicting himself and further proving to us that he in a neurosurgeon not confident in his abilities. My dad will have spent thousands of dollars for this hospital stay and we have no idea how much more thousands we will have to spend to find a doctor who will willingly perform the spinal fusion to allow my dad to not only not be in pain, but to also be able to walk, sit, and use the bathroom on his own. We are slowly losing hope and beginning to believe we will have to pay completely out of pocket for my dad’s previous neurosurgeon to provide my dad the surgery he desperately needs. As of now, we have two incomes coming in, my mom’s as a teacher’s assistant and mine as a research associate. However, my mom will have to take an unpaid family medical leave to provide to assistance my dad needs until he can get the surgery and heal which will result in my income being the only one coming in. Unfortunately, mine is not enough to cover the mortgage payment, property taxes, insurances, water and electricity bills, groceries, and other expenses. The surgery has a year recovery and with no surgery date in place we are unsure about what future finances hold.

For further proof as to how desperate this situation is, my dad went to work three days after having a bilateral radial head break (one of the rarest double arm breaks recorded in medical history), he cut his thumb with a grinder down to the bone, got stitches and returned to work immediately. My dad carried groceries in by himself with a shattered hand before going to get himself taken care of because I had just received surgery and he wanted to ensure we had everything we needed. He was hit by a car and thrown backwards 20 feet smacking his head and bruising his ribs and didn’t take any time off of work. He watched a train derailment occur literally three feet in fromt of him, the train barely missing him and never took time off to process the traumatic event. My dad worked up until the day before his previous back surgeries despite the pain he was in. My dad has the highest pain tolerance of anyone I have ever known and anyone I will ever know and typically refuses prescription pain killers. Seeing him immobilized and relying on pain killers to be able just to lay comfortably is completely unlike him and further proves the severity of this situation. You can ask anyone who knows him and they will tell you my dad would do anything or give anything to anyone. He has never taken a hand out ever in his life and now all of the money he has worked so hard for to follow his passion will be gone to providing him relief of the torture he has gone through for a month and a half now. Asking for help is extremely hard for all of us, but it has come to the point were we need to. 100% of the money raised from this GoFundMe will be going to help cover his medical bills. We all greatly appreciate any help we can get during this extremely stressful time.