Help out the Grosheks!

My name is Lauren and I am married to Ashley. As you all may know, my dear wife had a double knee replacement on November 2, 2022, after a seven-year battle with worker’s compensation. This has resulted in Ashley being out of work completely for the month of November and working a half schedule in December and possibly in January. All of this means that, due to the nature of her pay schedule as a therapist, she will not have a full paycheck again until at least February 15. And so, we are asking for your assistance in covering as much of Ashley’s lost wages as possible. If you’d like, please read on for the background on how we got here.

Ashley initially fell in August 2015 and it was determined she needed a partial knee replacement. Work comp fought her through six court appearances over the next seven years. While Ashley eventually won every court case, by the time she won on her right knee in 2019, she needed a total knee replacement. She struggled for years to find an orthopedic surgeon who would do the surgery. She was told she was too fat and too young to qualify for the total right knee replacement by multiple surgeons who told her to lose between 50-100 lbs and that gastric bypass would be a more conservative approach than a total knee replacement. Eventually, we found a surgeon in September of 2021 who specializes in knees for fat people and explained that her kneecap in fact has a “normal” fat cap and posed no greater risk than the average person.

However, by that time, her left knee had begun to fail as well. Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, surgery on the right knee was pushed out to late 2022. When we saw Ashley’s wonderful surgeon, Dr. Scott Marsten, again, we found out the left knee had completely failed and was also in need of a total knee replacement. We elected to go forward with a double knee replacement on November 2nd with the understanding that work comp had been ordered to pay for surgery on both knees.

3 weeks prior to surgery, work comp asked for an Independent Medical Exam to determine the necessity of the double knee replacement, scheduled for November 12, 10 days post-op. We went back and forth a lot and cried a lot together. We made the decision, again, to go forward with surgery with the understanding that work comp was going to pay for Ashley’s lost wages, allowing her to be walking again before returning to work.

Today, we found out that is not the case. The Independent Medical Exam is scheduled for December 26, and will determine if she receives compensation or if Ashley will need to go back to court. This, again, leaves us without Ashley’s income for at least 1.5 months. Ashley loves her work as an LGBTQ and gender therapist but is feeling, rightfully so, a lot of pressure to go back to work too soon, interfering with her ability to recover.

We thank you all in advance for your help, whether it be a donation or sharing out this GoFund Me, or both. We send you all our love and many thanks for your generous support.

Warmly,

Lauren and Ashley