Jacquie Slater - Amaral Medical Fundraiser

Betty Amaral is organizing this fundraiser on behalf of Alex Slater Amaral.

In April this year, Jacquie was really struggling with persistent lower back pain, that then moved to her abdomen, accompanied by severe spasms. She was taken by ambulance to Kingston Hospital, just outside London, where a scan showed a large stone had moved from her gall bladder to lodge in her bile duct. After a few days to stabilise her condition, Jacquie was transferred in early May to a nearby specialist hospital to remove the stone. The surgeons were unable to access the stone, however, and she was sent home. Within hours, her body went into Toxic Shock and she was rushed back into hospital and admitted to the Intensive Care Unit (ICU), where she received round-the-clock, one to one nursing. Her vital organs – lungs, liver and pancreas – were all affected with fluid build-ups and she then contracted pancreatitis. Unable to breathe unaided, her consultant made the difficult call to put Jacquie into an induced coma, so they could put her on a ventilator that breathed for her, for 3 days and nights. She remained in the ICU for two more weeks and wasn’t even allowed to swallow sips of water, as her body struggled to cope with sepsis, the body’s life-threatening response to infection.

Jacquie is now in Hammersmith Hospital, on the outskirts of London and a two hour drive from her home. With her body still reacting to various post-operation infections, fluid continues to build up on her lungs, kidneys and around the pancreas, so she has 5 separate drains in her body to reduce this excess fluid and is still being nourished via an intravenous feed.

Although the National Health Service in the UK covers the cost of the hospital treatment, any help with rent payments and the current unprecedented food, transportation and energy costs, would be invaluable. Jacquie is self-employed, with no sick pay, so will have been without an income for around 6 months, by the time she recovers sufficiently to re-undergo the operation to remove her stone and then convalesce and re-start her business. Her lovely, loyal clients are keeping her going with messages and she is counting down the days to when she can spoil them all again in her treatment room. Her son Alex, who is just 22, has a part time job and is struggling to balance work with visiting and supporting his mum through this unexpected and major medical situation.

Thank you so much for your kindness and generosity and do please keep Jacquie and Alex in your prayers.