Connie’s hospital expenses and upcoming care

Hi, my name is Jamie and I am setting up this fundraiser for my mom, Connie. She has been through so much in the last couple months and the expenses that have been incurred are starting to add up and her and my dad are now feeling the weight of not knowing how they are going to pay for bills and other things that they need, while she is still recovering.

Mom went to the hospital on November 17, 2022, for what we thought would be an outpatient surgery to remove a mass that had been found on a CT scan. The surgery ended up being more complex, requiring them to cut her abdomen open to get to the mass. She was admitted to the hospital for what we thought would be a couple days. This turned into a nightmare and a month long hospital stay. On November 20th, she was found unresponsive by the nurses. They were able to revive her and we thought she would be on the road to recovery after this, but as each day passed, her health continued to decline. On November 23rd, her abdominal incision began to drain and by the evening of the 24th, she was soaking dressings every couple hours. When the physicians rounded on her the morning of November 25th, they said that her incision was infected and that she would have to go back to surgery. They took her to surgery that morning and found approximately ten inches of her small intestine to be completely necrotic and leaking into her abdomen. This is how her incision became infected. Due to the necrotic small intestine, they had to remove it and she has been left with a permanent ileostomy (hole in the side of her stomach where stool will drain from). While they were performing this surgery, the surgeons injured her bladder and we have now been informed that she will have to wear a Foley catheter for at least a year to allow this injury time to heal. To top these things off, she has an open abdominal wound (approximately 8 inches long by 3 inches wide by 2 inches deep) left after they cleansed it during surgery. She came out of surgery on the ventilator and spent a few days in ICU. After several days, her abdominal wound wasn’t improving, so they put a wound vac on it and also found her to have a fistula that had developed from the bladder injury.

She remained in the hospital until December 14th, at which time she was discharged to the nursing home. Her physician requested that she go to LTACH (long term acute care hospital), but her insurance supposedly denied this request, so she was discharged to a local nursing home instead. She currently remains in the nursing home, but her health has declined more since being here, due to their inability to provide the intensive care that she needs. When her physician saw her for the first time at the nursing home, he told her that she needed more acute care than they could provide, so he requested for her to go to LTACH as well. Her insurance again denied this request. We even submitted an appeal to this decision, but once again, she was denied by her insurance.

One of the biggest nightmares during all of this has been our fight with her insurance. They haven’t wanted to pay for any of her care and are now refusing to pay for her to stay in the nursing home, so they are going to have to discharge her to home sometime this week. We have now been informed that her her insurance isn’t accepted by the medical equipment companies, so they aren’t going to be able to get her a hospital bed to have at home. 

Her current health status is pretty well bedridden, as she can barely stand up on the side of her bed without getting extremely tired and short of breath.

Due to her health, my dad had to take a leave of absence from work and they have had no income since mid November. Hospital bills and all of their living expenses have taken a huge hit to their funds, so I am asking for any help that you can provide. I wasn’t able to explain all of her details in this, but just wanted to give some idea of what they have been through and what we are looking at. She still has a very long recovery ahead of her and with going home this week (due to insurance refusing to pay for further care), my dad will not be able to go back to work for a while yet. 

Any amount that you can donate would be most helpful and if you aren’t able to donate monetarily, we certainly covet any prayers that you can say on her behalf.

I thank you in advance! May you have a blessed and wonderful day.