Donate to Arnie Dassow

For a little background information on Arnie: He is a diabetic, and almost five years ago he had to have a double transplant done. He had a kidney & pancreas transplant. After his transplant he was taken back down to Madison multiple times due to health issues where they discovered that he had come down with a heart condition, and said in years to come that he would probably need a heart transplant. Which thankfully he hasn't needed yet. Due to the heart problem and his double transplant my dad was not allowed to continue working at Weathershield and had to start collecting disability. This has hurt my parents pretty badly financially. He had to take a huge cut in his monthly income, along with him having to pick up paying for a bunch of new medications. Yearly I believe my dad spends around $3,600 on these medications(this total is out of pocket cost). Through all of this my mom has held our family together, getting dads medications ready each week and scheduling all of his doctor appointments, this last year she even picked up a part-time job to try and make ends meet.


Around September of last year we noticed that he was coming down with an infection on his foot. Because of this he had to start going to wound therapy twice a week at the hospital, along with having to come in once a week to get labs drawn. Around Thanksgiving time we noticed that he was starting to get blisters/rash around his armpit, after going into Urgent Care they diagnosed him with having Shingles. They had him pick up some prescriptions and he was able to come home that same day. Onto the very next day he was in a lot of pain with his foot and having the shingles that he got admitted into the hospital where he stayed for a couple of days to get pain meds and antibiotics through an iv. They were able to discharge him but my mom had to drive him in every eight hours to get his antibiotics through his pic line, for another four days. Luckily my dad didn't have to spend Thanksgiving in the hospital but I wasn't allowed to come into contact with him, because at that time I was pregnant with his second grandson. He was a little sad that he wasn't able to see his grandson over Thanksgiving but we printed off pictures of him for his room and for at home. After a very long week of my dad getting his antibiotics he was cleared and only had to continue to put a little cream on them every day until they were completely gone. And then a week later my dad starts experiencing body aches and cold chills, my sister and I convinced him to go into urgent care once again, where they found out that the infection was pretty bad and they cleaned it out there and sent him home. The next day he had another appointment for his foot at Bone & Joint where they told him that he needed to go and have surgery on it because they believed that the infection had spread. While in surgery to clean out the infection they found out that it had spread to the little toe on his foot. They had to amputate it. He was in the hospital for a couple of weeks and after that they ended up having to amputate all of his toes on that foot and part of his foot. He was discharged but had to drive to Wausau everyday to attend the oxygen chamber. He attended the oxygen chamber for around two months and they thought it was healed pretty good so they told him he could stop going. Everything was going good for a couple of months until the last week of July 2013. He went into Urgent Care because he was having chills, throwing up etc. They admitted him because they believed he had cellulitis on his ankle on his bad foot. After two days of being in the hospital they had an MRI done of his foot and it turns out that the infection is back again. He got transferred via ambulance back to wausau hospital. We really don't know at this time what will happen. We're really hoping that they don't have to amputate more.

My parents have been through a lot in the last five years and I'm trying to do everything that we can do to help them. My husband and I only live off of one income with two children. My parents were amazing and took us in for a whole year so that we could help them out with some bills and they helped us out by not charging rent. They're amazing people who just continue to have bad circumstances thrown their way. Please consider donating to them since they have accrued a bunch of debt with traveling an hour away from the oxygen chamber, my dads income being cut in half, and all the medications my dad has to pay out of pocket for. Anything will be much appreciated!


Thank you,


Casey Borchardt