Support Ryan's Journey to Mayo Clinic & Johns Hopkins.

I’m writing on behalf of 37-year-old Ryan Becker, who is suffering from an unbelievably serious and painful dermatologic condition that is covering 30%+ of his skin. The lesions are also affecting mucous membranes such as inside the mouth. Despite extensive diagnostics, admission to ICU at Sacred Heart in Spokane, WA, and examination by a fleet of doctors and specialists, his condition is currently a medical mystery.

Ryan is being flown to the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, MN, for examination by the Head of the Dermatology Department and is expected to have an extended stay there. The lesions start out as extremely large patches of inflammation and blisters before turning to necrosis. The large black patches literally look like frostbite. Pain is off the charts! To try and knock back the pain, Ryan’s doctors have had him on Dilaudid, OxyContin, and Fentanyl.

Besides this latest life-threatening setback, Ryan has severe PTSD from a previous career as a medic in the fire department where he was a first responder to events like entering a meth house under the 911-call guise of an elderly person in cardiac arrest, only to find the three-day-old decaying bodies of three very young children lying side-by-side in a bed, dead from a meth cooking accident. The foster parents had fled to escape capture.

Neither Ryan nor his wife, Mikkel, will be able to return to work in the foreseeable future. Thankfully, Ryan currently has good health insurance, but they were informed that unless he goes back to work at least half-time by February 22, the whole family will lose paid coverage (could explore COBRA). Besides the probability that they’ll have to start paying insurance/healthcare costs out of pocket, they are facing a lot of current and future bills for travel, home care, babysitting (they have a 4-month-old baby boy, Atlas), boarding the pets (they can’t be near his skin), and possibly even some remodeling needs to the home.

I can tell you from firsthand experience, this is a family that has always given beyond their means to help others. Often first responders with their time, talent, and treasure when they see suffering or when someone says they need a helping hand.

Sincerely,

Dr. Marty Becker, DVM.