Please Help with Medical and Living Expenses

We are starting this Go Fund Me to help raise money for our parents, Sharon and Ronnie Collins. They are having a very tough time. It started about a month ago when they were diagnosed with Covid. They thought they were getting better. On August 23 Ronnie had a routine scan of his lungs. They wouldn’t receive the results until August 28.

On the afternoon of August 27, Ronnie was napping and Sharon was on the phone with her sister like a normal day. Sharon just happened to step out on her porch and noticed a lot of smoke and quickly realized their home was surrounded by fire. They called 911 and immediately began to attempt to put out the fire, only to realize the fire had already melted their water line, so they had no water to fight the fire. Thankfully several fire departments from about a 40 mile radius and with help from God (It started raining after 48 days of no rain) the fire was contained. Luckily they were safe and only suffered minor property loss.

On August 28 as Ronnie was attempting to restore water to their home, his doctor called with the results of the lung scan and told him to immediately report to CHI St Luke’s in Lufkin Texas. When he arrived at the emergency room, he was told they would be placing a chest tube in him because his lung had collapsed. They did an exploratory surgery to assess the damage to his lung. This surgery revealed more than just a collapsed lung. He was diagnosed with a staph infection causing lesions on the outside of his lungs and a white interior of his lungs. This puzzled the doctors. They gave him high doses of antibiotics and kept him in the ICU.

A few days later they felt he was on the road to recovery and were preparing him for discharge. This included the removal of the chest tube. Unfortunately, his lung collapsed again after the chest tube was removed. This meant they needed to take him back in the operating room and insert another chest tube. While in recovery from the second chest tube, Ronnie began to swell to the point they had to remove the second chest tube and place a larger one. Since there was no where for the air to go, it was being absorbed into his tissue causing extreme swelling to the point he was unrecognizable. This was more than the doctors at CHI Lufkin could handle, so he has been transferred to Baylor Houston in the Medical Center. On Tuesday they are going to attempt another procedure to try to fix his lungs. It took many days and lots of Doctor to Doctor calls to find a hospital with the equipment necessary to do the procedure.

This is taking a tremendous toll on them emotionally, physically, and financially. Any help would be greatly appreciated. If you financially can not help, please at least say a prayer and share because someone you know may have it on their heart to help.