On December 26th, after celebrating a wonderful Christmas with family, Todd was walking to meet the bus for his standard morning coffee when he slipped on a thin sheet of ice and shattered his left femur. This happened at 5 in the morning while most people were still sleeping.

Todd has minimal sensory nerves from the waist down and did not know he had broken his leg or how severe the break was as he had no pain. The bus driver and his wife, Keli, worked together to get Todd off the ground and onto his walker. When his left leg did not turn with his body, we knew something was wrong. The bus driver and Todd's wife helped him into the car and drove to the ER. After struggling to get out of the car and into a wheelchair at the hospital, Todd checked in. Fifteen minutes and x-rays later, he learned of the shattered femur.

The hospital transferred Todd to a larger facility that could handle his surgery and recovery after adding a traction device to keep his leg in the correct position. Surgery was scheduled for Dec 27th and was expected to last 2 hours. Four hours after going into the surgical suite, Todd was headed to recovery. His femur shattered approximately 4 inches below the ball and required rods to be placed in his femur permanently. He has a rod the full length of the femur to the break as well as from the ball to the break, with screws/bolts holding the rod in place in the bone and 2 permanent clamps holding the fracture together inside his leg.

He spent 1 week in the orthopedic wing of St. Cloud Hospital, then was moved to the recovery ward for 2 weeks. He had physical therapy and occupational therapy 2 times a day each for 4 therapy sessions a day. He was released to home on January 15th with a wheelchair and strict rules of absolutely no weight bearing on the left leg.

Todd has just been given approval to start putting weight on his left leg and has physical therapy 2 to 3 times a week at St. Cloud Orthopedics.

Obviously, this entire time Todd has not been allowed to work, resulting in the lack of income for the household. All bills and financial responsibilities have fallen on his wife and her income alone, resulting in living paycheck to paycheck.

The medical bills are starting to roll in and Todd and Keli are not sure how they are going to begin paying their medical bills. Their car also needs some work to make it safe and reliable.

Assistance of any kind would be greatly appreciated as the medical bills so far are nearing $80,000.