Help Brian cover his cost for heart surgery

In January of 2021 my 'little' brother Brian (BJ) had an episode that presented heart attack/stroke symptoms (right hand felt weird, pins and needles starting at tips of fingers traveling up arm into right shoulder right neck right side of face and receding in the same order), and being alone in Maryland, drove himself to the hospital.  At the hospital, he was evaluated and released after they confirmed no heart attack had taken place.  Fortunately, he knew something was not right and kept after his providers to look further into the issue.  He had CT scans, and a brain MRI.  They found scar tissue in the brain, but it was inconclusive where that came from.  Finally, after moving to New Hampshire in April, he was referred to a neurologist. His neurologist ordered an EEG (a test that detects abnormalities in your brain waves), ECG (electrocardiogram) and had him wear a heart monitor.  It was at that point that my brother BJ was finally diagnosed! He has a hole between the right and left atriums in his heart. The neurologist referred  Brian to a cardiologist in Boston, and the cardiologist determined that based on the size of it, the hole in his heart needed surgery to be sealed. The procedure is called closure of PFO hole in the heart with Gore device. This procedure will reduce his future risk of clotting / stroke by 80%.

Having this procedure done last year would have had minimal financial impact as he had already exceeded his catastrophic cap for the year (which he is still paying off $2k in medical bills), but since it was denied twice by insurance, it did not happen. Now that we are in 2022, the procedure has been approved and will set him back the entire out of pocket cap, which will be a significant financial hardship on top of his down time for recovery.

Please help him to cover this significant cost and reduce the added stress on his heart worrying about how he’s going to come up with the money to pay for it. Thank you.