Join Tom's fight for a healthy and peaceful recovery!

I met Tom in the late 90s when he was the on-air coordinator and voice talent for a local radio station, and I was the marketing director of a car dealer group. We worked together - I was his client, but we quickly became great friends and integrated into each other’s inner circles. Since then, this friend group has shared many great times: vacations, weddings, new life, painful loss, and everything in between. For some reason, the last couple of years have been particularly challenging for our dear friends Deb and Tom, and we are rallying to support them in any way we can. I feel this begins with telling their story.

Tom found out that his sister Jen, a young wife and mother, had blood cancer about six years ago. In January 2022, Tom learned he was a bone marrow match, and after much preparation and sacrifice on Tom and Deb's part, Jen received his donation on January 24, 2022. Jen underwent several weeks of intense treatment, and although Tom did everything he could to save his sister's life, Jen lost her battle on April 13, 2022.

On July 4th, 2022, Tom and Deb were camping and enjoying a relaxing holiday when Deb experienced a freak accident. She suffered a broken neck at her C1 vertebra and a massive concussion, resulting in a traumatic brain injury. Tom devoted the next several months to supporting Deb in her journey to rehabilitate and regain what she had lost due to the accident.

n December 2022, Tom was rushed to the ER and admitted into the ICU for five days at the U of M Medical Center in Minneapolis. He had suffered massive blood loss due to esophageal varices, which led to the discovery that Tom had liver disease. The last year and a half has been devoted to getting Tom’s liver better, and we learned that to survive, he needed either a liver transplant or a donation match.

His 33-year-old son Jude, a father and ARMY veteran who served a tour in Afghanistan with an Army Airborne Heavy Artillery troop, instantly stepped up to donate part of his liver to save his father’s life. Sadly, after months of rigorous and invasive testing, doctors discovered that Jude was not a viable match, so the only option left was a donor transplant.

In early May 2024, a miracle happened. Tom and Deb received the call they had been waiting for...they had a liver for Tom. His mother, Cecilia, had come to visit from New Mexico, so she was miraculously there to be with Tom and Deb through this complex surgery and subsequent recovery.

Post-surgery recovery and aftercare are a massive undertaking for the family and will be ongoing for the rest of Tom’s life. He is unable to work for months post-op, as his recovery is quite intense. Tom and Deb have recently learned that the surgery and post-op care costs upwards of a million dollars. Although they are hopeful that insurance will cover most of the cost, there are still deductibles, uncovered expenses, and other expenses they face that we are hoping and praying to get help with.

Your thoughtful generosity will help cover these expenses and mitigate some of the financial loss from Tom being off work for several months, allowing him to recover comfortably and peacefully with less worry.

We keep Tom, Deb, and the Martinez family in our thoughts and prayers daily as they continue their long recovery to good health, and we thank you all for your love and generosity!