Cindy Fly Magers Recovery Fund
Hello, my name is Jimmie Magers and I am trying to raise funds for my wife Cindy Fly Magers. She is currently in Intensive Care at the hospital after suffering from post-op complications as part of her cancer treatment plan. In May of this year she had an emergency appendectomy, and after testing was finished she was diagnosed with a rare form of cancer – Goblet Cell Carcinoid of the Appendix.
Going back to the beginning, for over a year now Cindy has complained of having horrible hot flashes, even describing the feeling like she was on fire on the inside. The flashes would come on rapidly, she would begin to sweat very heavily, and her arms, face, and chest would turn solid red. She would feel extremely drained after these episodes but she’s had some thyroid and allergy issues for a few years so we thought this was part of those same problems. We now know these hot flashes were symptoms of her tumor – Carcinoid Flush.
In May the pain started to get worse and she started missing work due to the nausea and vomiting. Soon after I received a text from her when I was getting off work saying we needed to go to the Emergency Room. They treated her with IV antibiotics and sent us on our way with orders to stay in bed for a few days. She started to feel better but about a week later the pain came back even worse. She couldn’t even stand so it was back to the Emergency Room for us. She was taken in for her appendectomy which went well, and after a couple days recovery we were able to go home with plans to come back for a follow up in two weeks.
A few days after we came home, Cindy received a message from the doctor asking her to come in sooner. Pathology had come back on her appendix and they had discovered a tumor which was cancerous. She was referred over to an oncologist who decided after consulting with the surgeon and reviewing her scans and blood tests that she needed part of her colon removed along with several lymph nodes for testing as well.
On August 11th Cindy went in for her next surgery. Everything went well and the next morning she seemed to be recovering nicely. We thought she would be moving home to continue her recovery within a few days, but that evening she started experiencing unbearable pain in her abdomen. 24 hours and two cat scans later, she was being rushed into surgery because her bowel had split at her incision sight and stool had been leaking into her abdominal cavity causing peritonitis (inflammation of the membrane lining the abdominal wall and organs). She was moved to the ICU when the surgery finished just after midnight that night with the hope that she could be moved back to her room the next day.
The next day, Sunday the 14th, Cindy’s breathing deteriorated, she became septic, and she had to be placed on a ventilator. A few days later, among many other issues that came up, her kidneys began to shut down and she had to go on CRRT – Continuous Renal Replacement Therapy (a 24 hour version of dialysis used because her body couldn’t handle the dialysis yet).
Over the next two weeks she continued to go back for surgery after surgery to flush out her abdominal cavity in order to fight the infection that had spread inside her. After five total surgeries and several weeks in the ICU she was still critical, but stable.
On Friday September 2nd, the surgeon took her back to the OR one more time for a tracheostomy because she was still not ready to come off the ventilator. Switching her to the trache however, has made it so that she no longer has to stay under heavy sedation. After twenty days of being kept asleep, she is now awake, aware of what is going on, and fighting to recover.
Her Critical Care doctor says that she is still very much capable of making a full recovery at this point - we just have to take it one day at a time. We're not totally sure how much longer she'll be in the ICU, or in the hospital once they can move her back to a private room, but when we know something more concrete we'll share.
With Gods will and strength she will pull through this. She will not be working for quite awhile and will even have to take therapy eventually to learn how to walk and talk and walk again. Home bills along with the soon to come medical bills will be overflowing and my check and her short term disability by itself cannot take care of all the obligations soon to follow. So I am trying to get my wife taken care of when she gets out of the hospital.
Thank you to everyone who has called, texted, visited, and offered support over these last few weeks. We truly appreciate all your thoughts and prayers. Any help you can give us in this time of great need will be truly and forever appreciated.