V8 supercar family Stewart gear needs your help

Hi everyone my name is shirlian I’m Stewart’s wife , stew has been volunteering for 20 years with the V8 supercars, this is a hard post for me to write as we are usually the people helping others in need we feed the homeless and help women and children going through domestic violence but we need help . Over the last 18 months stew has been dealing with a tumour on his brain that has caused multiple medical issues. On the 2nd of April Stewart went into hospital in Brisbane to have it removed, we were all so excited for his journey in healing to begin but what was supposed to be a fresh start for him and us as a family turned into the worst experience of his life.

on April 3rd, the day after his brain surgery at 11pm at night he got out of bed for the first time to make his way to the toilet an hour and a half later, nursing staff found him on the floor in a pool of blood after having passed out, causing him to smash his face and knock his front tooth out. He was put back to bed with no follow up or investigation into why he passed out. They discharged him from hospital a few days later before having had him even get out of bed, I had to wheel him down to the car.

in the following days he was bed bound, not eating nor drinking and in a state of pure exhaustion constantly. On the Thursday I contacted the hospital 138 times as I was told to speak to the patient liaison officer as he had already been discharged from hospital but there was no answer or response to my calls. I made the choice on Thursday evening that we would go back to the hospital first thing Friday morning as something just was not right.

At 4am Friday morning Stewart got up out of bed to use the bathroom and noticed that our dogs needed to be let out, as it is only a few steps from our bedroom he felt well enough to do so. Her now know he was not at all.

At 5am my son in law woke me up telling me that Stewart was outside on the concrete and could not move. I rushed out to see him covered in blood again, bleeding from the nose and unable to move, I immediately called the ambulance. They took him to the Gold Coast hospital and to our dismay we found out that he had completely shattered his hip after passing out again and that his heart was beating at 133 bpm and the reason for him passing out was that his blood pressure had bottomed out at 56/72. And that he would now need a total hip replacement.

because of the blood pressure and heart rate issues the Gold Coast hospital was unable to operate on his hip for over 48hours in fear that he wouldn’t survive the anesthesia so he lay in A hospital bed for almost three days with a shattered hip and minimal pain management.

we are now almost 7 weeks since his initial surgery and Stewart is still in hospital, we were told it would only be a 2-5 day recovery for the brain surgery but he has yet to be able to come home because of all the complications that followed.

we have recently found out that the neurologist that performed his initial surgery not only removed the tumour but also removed part of the gland it was attached to which has now caused his blood pressure to drop every time he stands so he is bed bound.

he has lost 18kg since April 2nd because he is unable to keep food down.

As you can imagine after being confined to a hospital bed for almost 7 weeks Stewart’s mental health has also deteriorated and he is struggling to find a way forward.

As much as we hate to ask we are in desperate need of financial help I haven’t been able to work for the past 7 weeks our rent is $1000 a week and it’s been $50 a day in parking and fuel to be there to support Stewart as much as I can .

I need to get a medical bed for him and a scooter and all the other bits and pieces he will need once he is able to come home as you can imagine iv got no idea how I’m going to do this, so any support you are able to give him would be greatly appreciate as I know he/we would be there for anyone else in our situation . Please share this page as much as possible as I know he is well know with a lot off the teams and volunteers .

sending thanks to you all

shirlian