Joyce Merritt's Medical Fund
To All Family, Friends and Well-Wishers of Joyce Merritt:
Some of you have heard about Joyce’s medical emergency.
We, her family and friends put together a Go Fund Me account for her to help her out while she is unable to do much other than recover in the hospital.
She has run into some major unexpected health issues. She had been feeling under the weather for quite a while, but on Friday, Oct. 6th she felt as though she was hit by a Mack truck, and had to go to the emergency room. They took a CAT scan that showed that her colon had gotten twisted around on itself. That night, she was taken to University of Florida Shands Hospital in Gainesville to the Trauma ICU. A scope was used to go in and try to straighten out the colon. At that time, the doctors saw that the cells in the area of the twist had died from lack of blood circulation, so on Saturday morning Joyce was operated on and a section of her colon was removed.
After around 4 days she was moved from ICU to the Trauma step down unit. She progressively got worse, more nauseated, couldn’t keep food down and even had trouble keeping down liquids. Joyce got very dehydrated. Because the nausea caused Joyce to throw up very violently, it caused her stitches to rip out and rupture the area of the surgery around her bowels, which sent her in for another emergency surgery on October 18.
After that surgery she spent another another 6 days in ICU on a liquid diet unable to eat solid food.
Tomorrow it will be 3 weeks since she was first admitted into the hospital and she's finally able to eat very small amount of solid food. The muscles in Joyce's colon are still not working, so further surgery may be needed in the next week or two.
At this point the doctors are not sure when they will be able to discharge Joyce. They are taking it day by day.
Joyce’s situation for the campaign: She needs to raise money to live off of while recovering from these surgeries. And even though she has medical insurance, she will still have medical bills to pay; co-payment and deductables.
Joyce is an adjunct professor in Biology at Community College. Like all adjuncts, she’s paid very little, and gets no benefits at all. Joyce also works part-time at the University, where she previously did an internship and got her Doctor of Plant Medicine. In both of those jobs, she doesn’t get paid if she's not able to work. As the result of getting paid so little, Joyce lives paycheck to paycheck. She has not been able to save up for emergencies such as these.
The minumin recovery time provided Joyce healed well without complications was 6 weeks, and that includes the 1 week she was to be in the hospital recovering after the 1st surgery. Her healing so far has not gone smoothly, and she has been in the hospital 3 times longer than what was expected, which means she will be out of work without pay longer than 6 weeks. And at this point in time there is no telling how long she will be unable to work.
Starting November there will be no money coming in to keep a roof over her head, utilities paid, and food on the table.
Her husband is on disability with no other means of support. His disability check is such a small amount it really doesn't amount to anything. Florida provides low-income people with very few benefits, although they will apply for what they are eligible for.
While Joyce's husband was going back and forth to the hospital, their car started having transmission problems. Basically the car is now unreliable and on it's last leg.
The goal for this funding campaign is $10,000 for starters, to cover the basic living expenses while Joyce is unable to work.
Of course, we’ll be issuing updates that will help to show just what’s going on and what’s needed, including how Joyce's healing is progressing. In the meantime, she needs contributions ASAP, as November is just a few days away. Any assistance is very much appreciated, as you can see the situation is rather dire. Thank you so very much!!!
Blessings & Peace,
Victoria, Jaide and Family
