Support The Woodward Family
Anyone who knows Josh and Chelsea Woodward knows one thing. They are two of the most genuine people you will EVER meet.
Some other things you may know: They have two beautiful young children, Jax (5) and Holland (3).
Josh is an amazing dad, an Albany airport firefighter, and all around fun-loving guy. Chelsea is a self-employed "mom-preneur" photographer in the Capital District and has shared so many of your happiest life moments behind the lens of her camera.
These two are the ones you want on your team.
On Monday, February 4th, on their usual date night, Josh mentioned that he thought he'd pulled a muscle in his arm and it was sore. Being a firefighter, this isn't an unlikely occurrence. The next day he woke up with a fever but thought absolutely nothing of it, figured he caught what their two young kids had a few days prior and expected a few days of yuck.
Wednesday night (2/6), over night, the pain from the “pulled muscle” became excruciating and the fever persisted. Chelsea and Josh assumed he must have actually torn a muscle and figured he should go to the ER for some meds to help ease the pain and maybe a sling for his arm. It was such a casual occasion that Chelsea dropped him off at the ER, kissed him and said, text me when you want me to pick you up. Within a couple of hours a doctor was calling her from his phone saying she needed to get back to the hospital ASAP if she wanted to see him before he went in for emergency surgery.
Josh did not have a flu, he was SEPTIC.
They THOUGHT initially it could have been a small cut near his arm or even just a pimple that grew inwards but TURNS OUT THE INFECTION STARTED WITH STREP, STREP. The infection was so bad all near his arm and chest it took the doctors about two hours to operate on him just to clean out as much of the infection as they could, but by the time they got in there, it had already spread to his heart, lungs, kidney, and liver.
Josh is currently fighting for his life AT St. Peters Hospital!
His kidneys are failing and he is on dialysis.
He is currently stable, but these are critical hours.
All Chelsea can do right now is sit by his bedside, pray, and wait for a miracle.
What WE can do is come together to support this family by prayer and action.
Being self-employed does not lend well to these situations and Josh is going to have a long road to recovery. Chelsea will need to take time off from her business in order to care for him and maintain stability in the life of their children.
We are raising funds to support the family for childcare and medical expenses during this time.
It's our turn to be on THEIR team!
Anything you can contribute to them is a blessing.
We are not promised tomorrow : all we have is this moment.
Thank you from the bottom of our hearts for the continued love and support towards this incredible family.
<3
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2/18:
It’s our last day to be sad. We decided.
I came in this afternoon and said, we’re done being sad ok? It’s time to work! It’s time
to be #woodwardstrong
I told him what the surgeon said, that guys like Josh who make such leaps and bounds like he has can have the option to rehab at home. We can turn our home into a space for him to heal once he’s done here at the hospital (still quite some time for that to happen). That was apparently the magic because he was motivated to eat his dinner and now he is working on drinking his ginger ale all by himself. It’s sad to watch him struggle to bring a straw to his mouth, but it’s great to see his fighting spirit back. The last two days he’s been so incredibly depressed.
Okay, news on the hand. It won’t get touched for a week, at least, so there is no say if fingers will have to go or not but it does look like his pointer finger and top half of middle finger will have to go and the tip of the thumb. But otherwise, all wounds are healing as they should be with no concern.
Today was hard, but productive and ended with a great deal of hope!
#woodwardstrong #thefivepercent
Insta: chelsea_woodward
It’s our last day to be sad. We decided.
I came in this afternoon and said, we’re done being sad ok? It’s time to work! It’s time
to be #woodwardstrong
I told him what the surgeon said, that guys like Josh who make such leaps and bounds like he has can have the option to rehab at home. We can turn our home into a space for him to heal once he’s done here at the hospital (still quite some time for that to happen). That was apparently the magic because he was motivated to eat his dinner and now he is working on drinking his ginger ale all by himself. It’s sad to watch him struggle to bring a straw to his mouth, but it’s great to see his fighting spirit back. The last two days he’s been so incredibly depressed.
Okay, news on the hand. It won’t get touched for a week, at least, so there is no say if fingers will have to go or not but it does look like his pointer finger and top half of middle finger will have to go and the tip of the thumb. But otherwise, all wounds are healing as they should be with no concern.
Today was hard, but productive and ended with a great deal of hope!
#woodwardstrong #thefivepercent
Insta: chelsea_woodward
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