Help Kenny’s Surgery & Road to Recovery

Hey everyone,

As many of you may know now, I took my husband into the ER Friday the 4th for severe lower back and leg pain he has been dealing with for over two weeks straight. He noticed the pain while he was in LA, attending one of his best friends funeral on July 21st.

When he arrived back home on the 22nd of July, the pain had gone from mild to severe. He couldn’t sit down comfortably, couldn’t sleep in bed and lay flat on his back, and the pain had moved from just one side of his body to both.

He went into the doctor three separate times for this pain- July 25th, July 29th, & August 1st. Every-time he was told to come back if the pain had worsened but it seemed to be a sciatic and could take several weeks to heal or go away- but prescribed him muscle relaxers, steroids for inflammation, and oxycodone for the pain. His last visit on August 1st, he informed the doctor that he couldn’t pee correctly, that he started to feel some numbing, and hadn’t had a bowel movement & the last one he had- it just fell out (something he considered good because he wasn’t consistently going).

Needless to say, nothing was working, but no one was listening. Kenny was very aware something else was wrong.

Friday August 4th was the first experience Kenny had with potential paralysis. I was driving to pick up our daughter and he had gotten up to get some water and after a step or two, he explained that it felt like his leg just disappeared, causing him to fall to the floor. Minutes later, he started to regain feeling as his foot started to get the pens and needles after being numb. When I returned home Friday evening, he was in excruciating pain. I had brought him home dinner and as he tries to sit up in the recliner chair to eat, he went into a full spasm (something that had been happening at this point for two weeks straight) but the pain in his face, in his body, and in his voice was so much different.

He was in so much pain that he started to hyperventilate and sweat.

If anyone knows Kenny well enough, you know he doesn’t like going to the doctor, let alone the hospital- he’s had many surgeries in his life and it’s the last place he will ever wanna go, but that night, there was no fight, I told him we needed to go, this wasn’t normal and it sure the hell wasn’t any sciatic I had ever dealt with.

We sat inside the ER waiting room for three hours until they finally called us back, we were told he needed an MRI right away with the red flags are numbness or no bowel movements and more. Within a few hours, Kenny was given several doses of dilaudid, more steroids, and muscle relaxers in hopes to get him on pain tolerance that he’d be able to lay flat on his back to complete the MRI. They monitored him for several hours & had told us he needed something stronger but he’d need to be transferred to another area of the hospital- which is where they gave him a dose of ketamine.

The ER doctor came in and told us that he was going to need to do a rectal exam to see if the muscles were strong enough. The exam results proved to be concerning and they waited for the MRI and results to come back to inform us that Kenny had developed CES

(Cauda Equina Sydrome). CES is is a rare but important condition whose commonest cause is massive lumbar disc herniation compressing the roots of the cauda equina in the lower lumbar spinal canal. Cauda equina syndrome (CES) refers to a group of symptoms that occur when nerves in the cauda equina, a collection of nerve roots that spread out from the bottom of the spinal cord, become compressed or damaged. CES is considered an emergency and requires immediate surgery to prevent permanent paralysis of the leg or loss of bowel and bladder control.

The last two-ish weeks has been so incredibly hard, emotional, and overwhelming. 3 weeks ago, my husband was completely fine and yesterday he went in for an emergency surgery where we discovered that the herniated disc had already penetrated the nerves and was one wrong step or movement away from severing the nerves and paralyzing him. His surgery took over 4 hours long because of the complications of how the disc was sitting in his nerve endings.

I’ve created this Go Fund Me to not only explain this terrifying turn of events but to also ask for help. We have insurance, but this is not a cheap visit, stay, procedure, or aftercare. We are responsible for his deductible on top of 20% of everything such as the medications, surgery, hospital bed at home, physical therapy, etc.- we are looking at a minimum of $20,000.

Kenny has already been out of work for 2 weeks and will be in recovery for 6 additional weeks. I am self employed and have missed an entire week of work & I’ll probably end up missing more until he’s safely recovering at home.

Kenny is the hardest working person I know. His heart is huge & his love is endless. He has dedicated his life to helping others and now we are asking for some love and help in return. Anything, no matter the amount, will help us pay off this very unexpected and scary situation. It is going to be a long road to recovery ❤️‍

I will also be posting my Venmo info in case that’s easier for some people:

@Shelby-Davis-159

Thank you all so much for reading & just remember, never stop advocating for yourself, you need to make sure you’re okay & you can’t always take a doctors advice.

UPDATE: August 10th, 2023

Just wanted to give a bit of an update-

Kenny is on day 3 post surgery. The first day he seemed to be doing pretty well, considering what the circumstances are/were.

The last few days & nights have been challenging. The night before last he completely ceased up while trying to use the bathroom, several nurses had to come in and help get him safely back to his bed. His temp got really high & he almost completely collapsed.

Feeling has not returned in his lower extremities and as you can imagine it’s very mentally exhausting and debilitating for him & there’s no timeframe for when his nerves will completely heal.

Please continue to send all the love & prayers possible, he needs them more than ever