Help Save John

As many/all of you may know, John and I, after careful consideration and planning, decided to travel abroad and have been staying as tourists in Ecuador. We did not make this decision lightly and planned and prepared for over a year to be able to travel.  I was able to telecommute, working for the family business. As long as we lived simply, and below our means, we were able to achieve temporary living there and save to travel further or move around as needed.
After being here for a couple of months, the family decided that my services were no longer required, even though being able to work from afar was easily within my abilities, we were even in the same time zone and have a US phone number, address, etc. We are only tourists here.
This did not cause us to jump back home immediately, we tightened our belts, pulled up our bootstraps and decided that we could live even simpler. A roof over our heads, food to eat, odd jobs and we were able to survive on less than $800 per month while maintaining our credit and small savings in case of emergency.
Emergency that is way beyond what anyone could ever imagine or prepare for hit on March 31st, 2016. My husband John was with some friends and collapsed. He was immediately taken to the local emergency room so they could determine what happened. He has not been conscious since collapsing and has not been able to answer any questions to the doctors about any prior symptoms, although he never reported or exhibited any prior to his collapse.
Initially, the ER doctors thought he had a cranial edema, brought on possibly by a fall or the altitude. Further testing continued, John was admitted to the ICU and a diagnosis of viral encephalitis (Please read this: http://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/encephalitis/basics/definition/con-20021917 ) was given.
John is still in the ICU, intubated to help him breathe, and is not responding to verbal or visual stimuli. He is however responding to physical stimuli and this gives me hope. It has only been a few days so far, he is under ICU care to relieve the swelling and medications to combat the infection. We do not know how he contracted the infection, but treatment remains the same.
Now comes the hardest part, we need help. We have done our best over our 28 years of marriage to be independent and make the best choices financially that we could so that we could enjoy our later years. This incident, this illness, and the cost of it, is far beyond anything we could have imagined, more than anyone could imagine or plan for as a regular working person or couple. John’s cost of care is at the minimum, $2000 per day in ICU, far less than in the US, but since we were just visiting, we were/are unable to obtain insurance that would cover us while traveling. We are visitors, so the insurance here is unavailable to us as well.
We are asking for you to donate to help cover the costs of his care. Beyond this initial phase, nothing is known, although I will keep everyone updated on a daily basis as I know more. Again, please read the article as there is a very large spectrum of possible outcomes. John is strong and until he regains consciousness we will not know anything about what will be required to move forward.
We are so blessed for our family and friends we have make and kept, both near and far and love each and every one of you. If you can help in any way, even just a little, it could literally mean the difference between life or death and we will do anything in our power to repay the debt in kind. Please keep us in your thought, prayers, send positive energy, whatever you believe as I am doing the same for John and for each of you as well.
Thank you and I love you all,
Sandy Wyskochil