Helping my brother Edwin Lopez

In December 2021, the life of my big brother and his family had a massive turn while visiting family for Christmas. He contracted Covid pneumonia and needed to be hospitalized. He spent three weeks at Palomar Health in Escondido, CA, when they realized lung failure was imminent. Therefore, he needed to be intubated under an induced coma and on top of that… ecmo therapy urgently! His care team was able to find a machine available at a different hospital, Scripps Memorial La Jolla, so he was transferred on Jan 14th. That day Edwin wasn’t stable enough to be transferred; the plan was to bring him to Scripps and connect him to Ecmo and stay there until further notice. Time was running, and Edwin was not ready to be transported. Dr. Harrington from La Jolla took the bold decision to jump into an Uber with the ECMO machine and go almost 1 hour away to save Edwin’s life! We will forever and always be grateful to Dr. Harrington. Edwin was successfully connected and transported to Scripps. On Jan 17th, it was decided he needed a tracheostomy; after that, he was able to wake up. While in ICU, a few ups and downs happened; some of the downs were the replacement of his feeding tube, which was initially placed through his nose, but in one episode, he accidentally pulled it out, and since it’s a procedure done at the same time as the tracheostomy they couldn’t place it back through his nose, it needed to be placed directly to his stomach, meaning… just under the chest. Then there was a gallbladder infection, so another tube needed to be placed, this time to drain the infección out, and it will stay there until he is well enough to undergo surgery. Finally, Ecmo was removed after 95 days, and he is recovering.

Today is May 7th, 2022 and he is still in ICU; there is no discharge date yet just because his lungs need more time to recover, but hey… we are in no rush, right? Most of our medical expenses will be covered by insurance, but there are other bills not covered, you know… like mortgage, utilities and other everyday expenses, and since Edwin was his family's main provider, the financial burden is causing a lot of stress and anxiety on him and yes, unfortunately, it’s affecting his recovery. Edwin won’t be able to go back to work at least until next year, he needs to dedicate all that’s left of this year to do physiotherapy and just to recover properly; he lost over 50 pounds, including muscle he, he lost movement and strength he will definitely need time to recover and get back the life he had.

So please help me help them save their house; anything helps! Edwin is a good man, always on top making sure his family have everything they need, his wife Stephany is a stay home mother who has dedicated the past almost 5 months to driving back and forth every day to go see him. They both have a 6-year-old girl named Isla and a beautiful puppy named Congo.

Thank you all for your support.