Medical Expenses for Jessica McDevitt

Hello, Brad, Jess' husband here, I would like to tell you a bit about why we have set this up.

On Monday, December 12, 2022, my wife suffered a catastrophic health crisis that came very close to causing her to go into heart and kidney failure. The doctor in the ER told me that I got her there just in time and that we would have lost her within the next 45 minutes. The doctors at Flower Hospital in Toledo, Ohio had to contemplate the necessity of amputating one or both legs.

There have to be worse ways to start the week, but I can’t conceive of any.

It is now Mid-August of 2023, and due to the severity of that health crisis and the wounds that precipitated that crisis, Jess has been in a variety of either hospitals or nursing homes ever since. While the nursing home she has been at since late January is good, the previous one was so poorly run that she was regularly denied sufficient pain medication, the other medicines she is on for her various emotional problems, or even basic... sanitary care of the variety most people have to do every day. As a result, her recovery was severely slowed, and the wounds actually became worse, resulting in a stay at Toledo Hospital and the renewed possibility of amputation. As an aside, I have told local people that if they have to choose between that nursing home and the local greasy spoon... choose the place that serves hamburgers and twenty-four-hour breakfasts.

I will not go into great detail as to Jess’ wounds. Suffice it to say that the hole on her inner left calf looked like the exit wound from a gunshot, while the condition of the rest of her lower left leg was best described with analogies from horror movies. Her right leg, comparatively, was not bad... just bad enough to make the doctors think it might need to come off too.

It did not come to that. I am happy to report to that my wife still has all her limbs. But...

The damage has taken a terrible toll. The wounds are still healing, and we still face several months more before she is truly well again. Worse, for several months, she was completely bed-ridden, and is having now to relearn how to walk. A good day in physical therapy is still being able to walk a distance most of us could cross before consciously realizing we were walking. Going up and down stairs is still close to an impossible challenge.

Needless to say, she has not been able to do any of her work as the beloved customer service guru for our employer, Goodman Games, which has impacted us greatly. Due to ongoing loans from a very generous friend, we have avoided eviction and been able to keep afloat, but only barely. At a few times in the past year, our bank account has been down to three digits... two of them to the right of the “.” Taking care of most of our bills has been a brutal squeeze ad the less said of the damage to our credit rating the better.

Even once Jess is able to come home, probably sometime in September, it is going to take several weeks before our lives can resume any semblance of normality and Jess can resume working.

Hence this GoFundMe.

So... where will your money go, if you choose to help us?

We owe that friend I mentioned almost $5000, and another $2500 or more in credit card bills, not to mention our income tax for 2022. We know that said friend is in no hurry to be repaid, but we feel beholden to try to pay that loan and those other bills back as quickly as possible.

I would like to be able to take any leftover money and take a vacation in Gettysburg (Jess’ favorite place on Earth.) But more realistically, I expect we will end up allocating all funds simply to bring our ledger back into the black, and any “leftovers” will be enough for a Happy Meal.

Maybe two.

So, there is my case. Thank you for reading this and you may rest assured that any donations will be spent wisely and on debts that need to be repaid.

Except if we get enough, maybe we’ll splurge and get a third Happy Meal.