Becca

Hi, my name is Becca and I’m starting this page to raise money for my oldest sister, Theresa, who’s been in the ICU at Shasta Regional Hospital since October. Theresa has been battling with an unknown illness for about two years now with extreme abdominal pains, trouble eating certain foods, intense bloating (Theresa is a skinny girl and she would get so bloated she looked very pregnant) and with every doctors visit she’s been given another “maybe” but no real answers. The diagnosis that has made the most sense recently was crohn’s disease which is defined as “a chronic inflammatory bowel disease that affects the lining of the digestive tract”, but there have not been adequate tests to confirm it. After many visits, her doctors prescribed her prednisone which is a mild steroid and that’s where the medical bills began piling up. After her first dose of the medication she ran out of money between her visits and her normal everyday bills and she wasn’t able to refill her prescription and the pain began to worsen. She was doing everything she could to keep going to work and get on top of expenses so she could afford to go see her doctor again and when she finally did, he called for a surgery to remove a mass in her intestines early in the morning on October 26th. Going into the surgery she was excited to not have to be in pain anymore and the whole family was praying for it to go smoothly and for her to be her healthy happy self again. The following night she was admitted again and was soon driven in an ambulance to another hospital in Truckee while they ran tests. They found out she was suffering from sepsis from complications after her surgery and the infection was extreme. She was then flown to Shasta Regional in critical condition where she has been ever since. While she’s been there they’ve been treating the infections while still trying to confirm or deny if she even has crohns and they’ve had to perform multiple surgeries and blood transfusions just to keep her alive. In the meantime the doctors and nurses have been very helpful with informing my mom about Theresa’s condition who then conveys it to the rest of the family. It’s been a rollercoaster with my moms long texts while some bring good news and progress and others bring bad news and another surgery or another test with bad results. This whole time my sister has been in the hospital she hasn’t even been able to breathe without a ventilator or move very much at all. My mom has spent every minute of everyday praying for my sister and talking to nurses and doctors and respiratory therapists about my sister and has made multiple trips up to see her just to sit by her bed and watch her thin sick body struggle against the many wires she’s hooked up to. She’s been doing a good job at keeping her composure and acting okay for the rest of us but you could really see the toll all of this was taking on my mom when Thanksgiving came around and we were all in our homes enjoying dinner while her oldest daughter was laying in a hospital bed alone almost three hours from home. The rest of my siblings and I all recently moved out for the first time and we’ve all been struggling with money ourselves so it’s hard for any of us to give her any help. I’m asking for $2,500 as a start to help Theresa with her medical bills and will raise the goal if we reach it. All the proceeds will go directly to Theresa so the doctors can continue to treat her and she can hopefully be home by Christmas.