Urgent Help for Brad and Lily's Medical and Legal Battles

**Brad and Lily Hunter’s Story: Seeking Help for Recovery and Stability**

To those kind strangers that do not know us,

We are Brad and Lily Hunter and live in Holly, Michigan. We’ve been best friends for over 20 years, met in high school, and have been happily married for nearly a decade. But recent months have brought more hardship than we ever anticipated, and we’re sharing our story in the hope that someone might be able to help. To those that we know and love and are just learning about this now, please know this has been a very difficult time and has also been extremely hard to process. I’ve left out some details to mainly spare you, but to also protect ourselves for the legal battles ahead.

In May 2024, I (Lily) began experiencing severe symptoms: dizziness, weakness, dry tongue and persistent nausea. A hospital visit revealed my white blood cell count was high, but with no clear infection, and blood work looking fine, I was discharged after minimal treatment

for my nausea. Shortly after, while using a new dry shampoo, I suffered a relapse of my symptoms and discovered the product was tainted with benzene, a chemical known to cause toxic reactions and even cancer. The exposure led to worsening health problems: skin reactions, blurred vision, unconscious episodes, severe vomiting, and more. Brad, who inhaled the shampoo while helping me wash it out, also experienced symptoms. Mainly gastrointestinal issues, which have been persistent.

As medical bills accumulated, Brad’s job situation worsened. His employers, who were also our landlords, harassed him for time away to care for me. Under pressure, Brad left his job to support me full-time, after my second hospitalization led us to a dead end, I felt unheard and ultimately feeling extremely isolated and hopeless, I discharged myself, since we knew what was causing the issues and asked for a toxicology report that could have been crucial in proving the benzene was in my blood stream, and never got what we came for. This ultimately led us to sell our belongings and move into an RV. However, the RV had hidden issues, adding to our financial strain. We are trying to work toward covering daily expenses, past debts, and additional medical costs, including those for possible stem cell therapy to address my long-term health damage.

My condition has caused kidney infections, internal bleeding, debilitating fatigue, memory loss, and we really

aren't sure what medical issue I may experience next. With Brad at my side, we’ve endured countless hospital visits and months of uncertainty. Despite limited resources, we’ve tried every possible option to get myself healthy and regain stability. Now, we are seeking support for medical bills, legal assistance (for product liability and tenant rights), and a secure place to park our RV for winter.

Every small bit of help, whether financial support, legal advice, or simply spreading the word, would mean the world to us. We know that recovery and stability are within reach, and with a little help, we hope to rebuild our lives. Thank you for reading our story and for any assistance you might offer.

If you would like any more information, please do not hesitate to reach out. And please be cautious of the products in your home, especially ones you put on your body.

With much gratitude,

Brad and Lily Hunter

For a more in depth and detailed account of our story, you may continue reading below. Thank you so much!

In May of this year (2024), I became very ill. I was experiencing strange symptoms for a couple of weeks like dizziness, a dry tongue (nothing quenched my thirst), was more tired than usual, and just wasn’t feeling myself. Quickly after those symptoms began, one morning I woke up and immediately became ill and could not stop throwing up. My body also had a strange smell and I knew something wasn’t right. I began to weaken by the minute and knew I had to call my husband, who was at work that morning, to let him know that I think we have to go to the hospital. Well, anyone that knows me knows my phobia of needles and thus hospitals in general. But something was telling me this was serious and I’d have to face my fears. I’d never been admitted to a hospital until that day for a physical illness. Brad took me to Genesys, which is the closest hospital to us, as I was fading quite fast. And if anyone remembers what happened to Ascension in May - it was a terrible day to be in the ER, or that hospital in general. They were experiencing a cyber attack and all systems were down and everyone was back to paper. I don’t like to admit this, but when I get sick it’s violent, all the time… I break blood vessels in my face, and… pee myself because of how forceful the vomiting is. So Brad sat in that ER with me for 5 hours while I threw up and politely tried to ask quite a few times for some scrubs, pants… anything for me, but for some reason that wasn’t an option. Hopefully, they sanitize those wheelchairs! So I sat in my “pee pants” until I was in the OR, which was about 8 hours or more later after being admitted to the ER. At this point, I was losing consciousness because I was becoming so weak. I was not put on fluids for hours until they put us in a small room in the ER. I was given about 5 doses of nausea medication - one orally first and the next 4 through IV because nothing would stop the pain in my stomach or the nausea until it finally subsided at about 2 in the morning the next day - I just remembered looking at the clock in my room at the time because I was so relieved.

I told every nurse and doctor my symptoms. I must have seen 20 people altogether. At one point I asked yet another nurse… why do I smell? This is not normal for me, and I heard her turn to another nurse and say “she has been complaining of that.” And no one answered me. And I had a feeling I wasn’t going to be heard. They did blood work, which came back “fine” though my white blood cell count was unnaturally high. With no sign of an infection, they decided to only keep me overnight to ultimately treat me for my nausea because I suppose they were stumped otherwise.

After being released, I came home and took a shower but the smell that I had been smelling on my skin, well coming out of my skin, was also in the house. I assumed maybe I just wasn’t over that smell or I was still sweating something out. But I took a shower and started to feel better. A couple of days later it was Mother’s Day and I wanted to visit our parents so I was getting ready and sprayed just a bit of dry shampoo in my hair. But the bottle didn’t stop spraying, which was odd but not totally alarming. I immediately fell to my knees and every symptom I had came back. I started shaking, got nauseated again, my skin became red - and I smelled the smell that was coming from my skin. It was the dry shampoo. I’d never used this particular product and only bought it because my normal brand wasn’t available. I used this for one week before these symptoms began. Please message me separately for the name of this brand. But what we learned was that there is an incredible amount of benzene in this product - not on the label. Supposedly the FDA had them change it because quite a lot of unfortunate people ended up getting cancer from long-term use of this product. And they say it is safe now. It definitely is not. Brad came into the bathroom to help me wash it from my hair as soon as possible and as thoroughly as possible. But when he came into the bathroom he inhaled what was left in the air and ultimately became sick himself. As soon as we knew, I let everyone know. At the time I got advice from a lawyer friend to keep the tainted product for testing later. Also to document everything. After accidentally dosing myself with this a second time, my body experienced every symptom of benzene poisoning. My skin was beet red, as if sunburned, my hands would shake and my body would vibrate. Each morning I woke up I could feel every part of me vibrating, shaking. The shampoo must have gotten in my eyes as well when we tried to wash it out because on the second day I lost my vision. Everything was blurry, my pupils did not react to light and were pinpoints. Which was also documented by a picture. I looked cross-eyed. One eye was slightly moving slowly but enough to kick my vision out of sight. Luckily, this lasted for only one day. Next came bouts of unconsciousness. Out of nowhere, I would be sitting up and immediately fall unconscious, this happened upwards of 10 times in one evening. What we had to do was throw away anything my head had touched in that time… pillows, bedding, also any heavy materials that couldn’t be washed well enough like rugs and curtains. It all went to the trash. We had a filter running constantly, but benzene lasts in the air for up to two weeks. Our animals were lethargic as well and we are still unsure of any long-term damage to their systems. And then I started vomiting again, only this time it was black with small specks of blood in it and small flesh pieces which turned out to be parts of my stomach lining. The second hospital visit was at Beaumont in Royal Oak because as advised by the lawyer he suggested I get a toxicology report so we would have something to prove this on paper - and let them know my situation, as they are a trauma center and you’d think they could help, so I told them what had happened and what I was poisoned by.

As soon as I was admitted, every doctor or nurse we saw we asked for what we wanted. The toxicology report - and each said “we will see what the doctor says.” At this point, I was throwing up so much and often I could hardly have time or energy to speak. Brad has always been a good advocate for me and tries to explain and answer for me but they said they needed me to explain. Which was frustrating because nor did I have the will to speak or lift my head I couldn’t stop throwing up long enough to answer. But over and over again we asked for what we came for. They put me through many unnecessary tests immediately. A CT scan revealed the one and only gallbladder stone I have lived with since I was 15 that was never a bother to me. They told us this was the culprit and wanted a surgeon down to speak to me. He of course says this is not what’s causing this and the procedure would be unnecessary. After more hours of not being listened to and ignored - it has been almost 48 hours- I ended up discharging myself. I was only becoming weaker and we were not going to get our answers. After that, we would take our chances. And at least I’d be in my own bed.

Brad took me home. Which at the time my body was so weak I would pass out if I moved my head in the slightest. I could not eat or drink. Brad fed me ice chips while I was in bed. I couldn’t stand up, walk or use the bathroom myself. I continued to throw up for 4 more days. I was honestly afraid to fall asleep. I didn’t think I was going to wake up again. The color of the vomit never changed. It was black with blood in it. - which every nurse saw at Beaumont when Brad was so alarmed and wanted answers and “assured” my husband it was only stomach bile. This was extremely acidic and painful to release. I ended up losing my voice for a month and it still will never sound the same as it did before. Once the vomiting stopped I couldn’t eat anything that would trigger an acidic reaction. And after a while, anything that’s harder to digest like meats, we both no longer could eat.

During this time my husband worked for people that were not happy with him having to rush off to the ER more than once and to take care of his very sick wife. He received many threatening text messages while in the hospital with me because we also rented our house from these people. He kept them up to date on my condition and ultimately had to quit to take care of me. Not only because it was the right thing to do but he was being harassed and the stress was unbearable. He was told he was lying. Like we had some grand plan to stay at this place for free forever. Which we have hospital bills, pictures, everything to prove what was happening. And there was no stipulation in our lease stating that if he left work we would be kicked out of our home. But at the end of the day that’s what they wanted to do. I can’t say much more to protect ourselves right now.

It’s now mid-June and we just want to wash our hands of these people so we sell everything we have for pennies on the dollar. I could no longer work because I was too sick and the poison had also affected my mind. It took me longer to do things and it wasn’t sustainable. I couldn’t provide what I was hired to do full-time. We never had an opportunity to save money, as I know many others can relate. But we were never prepared for an illness like this, to not be believed or heard and to move on whatever energy reserves we had left.

We ultimately moved in an old RV and took all we could with us. The RV itself revealed many hidden issues we tried to fix that were not disclosed by the person we bought it from so that also did not help us financially. We sold our vehicle to begin paying not only the debt we were paying before but begin paying on what insurance did not, daily expenses, and to try to get this RV to run. Pushing utility bills back just to make sure we had food.

I tried everything I could to heal my body. But you could tell it would no longer heal or take much longer to do so. Within one month the one and only kidney stone I have ever had in my life developed which blocked the flow of urine because of where it sat and gave me a kidney infection and UTI. The day I learned this I had not felt pain like that probably ever. It was excruciating. I knew I could feel my kidneys had taken a big hit from the poison because I was more aware of them than usual. But one morning the pain came on in my left kidney and only got worse. Again it was something that brought me to my knees. I remember laying on the grass throwing up because I couldn’t make it into the car. And I can hear Brad tell me we have to go to the hospital, begging me to say yes. I still hadn’t recovered from the last two hospital visits but I was losing consciousness and I finally said ok take me. We went again to the closest place - Genesys. This time it was quicker getting into the ER and on fluids. By the way the nurses were amazing that week and one kind individual I ultimately ended up accidentally flashing my bottom

to during a test did indeed give me a pair of scrubs to wear under the hospital gown. After getting a CT scan they found the stone and the blockage. This was why the IV antibiotics were not working. They couldn’t get to my kidney. So surgery was next and they moved us to the OR. I had a stent put in to open up the flow and make sure the antibiotics could get where they needed to go. It took 4 days in the hospital for my white blood cell count to lower. They couldn’t do anything about the stone because of the infection so we had to make sure the infection was gone to do that. When I was released, It was still painful, but after the antibiotics were done (oral ones they sent me home with) I was scheduled for the second surgery to laser the stone but the x-rays revealed the stone had moved further into my kidney by that time and they ended up crushing it by hand with a tool to mostly dust. Then a new stent went in which came out just last Monday.

But now I’m experiencing more health issues, among still being vey weak, there is evidence of my colon bleeding. Benzene poisoning has long-term consequences for your gastrointestinal system. And because I’m not healing I began to see specialists and naturopaths - anything I could do to make my body heal. The last resort is the possibility of stem cell replacement therapy because my cells were damaged through this. It’s not covered by insurance and we sold our vehicle, emptied savings, took out loans no matter how small to try to meet our goal. It can be upwards of $30,000 depending on the treatment. But even if we make our fundraising goal, our debts are beyond us. But it’s hard to even ask for this amount. We are also looking for a full-time place to park the RV this winter and plug in, we keep to ourselves and have the friendliest dog you could ever meet - and the softest cat that stays indoors because he thinks he wants to be in the wild but he would miss his blankets. So, if you or anyone knows anything that could help that would also be beyond appreciated.

I know we will have to start over. But I want to be healthy again. We don’t know what else to do other than to at least try to ask for help. I don’t know when I’ll be able to work full-time again. In totality, there are already $12,000 in medical bills and debts we’ve accrued to get by, and maybe more in medical as Beaumont sent my bill to a previous address on file so I’m yet to see that one - as they told us if we discharged ourselves we would also be responsible for the bill. I’m looking for legal help for two matters, product liability and tenant rights matters. This amount may seem like a stretch, but it’s only scratching the surface and I truly truly hope anyone can help us. Can help me feel myself again. And to anyone that we were ever or are close with, and you are learning about this now, please know it’s been a painful and stressful, unimaginably difficult situation and a lot to unload. It’s painful to talk about so I’m sorry if you never got the full story or are just learning now. But I still hardly have the energy to create this, but I know it’s our last option. I’ve looked into government assistance as well but nothing provides you with the help that could actually take anything away or pay bills long enough to just be comfortable enough to remove the stress and get some rest. Anything could help, no matter how small, please.

I know there has to be more than this and I know it will fall into place. We just need help from people that understand. And unfortunately, money helps. But prayers do as well. Please pass this along if you are willing and able.

Thank you so much for patiently reading our story. If you want any other info or more details, please let me know, I’ll provide all I can.

With the upmost gratitude,