My wife has a paralyzed diaphragm, we need help!

Hi, my name is Chris,

QUICK SUMMARY:

My wife (Jade) had surgery that was not a success, and the right part of her diaphragm is paralyzed in the UP position crushing her right lung. She now must be on supplemental oxygen to breathe, and we have mounting medical bills, including the "rental" of the oxygen concentrator, and our deductible and copays reset in January. Jade can no longer help me work, and I am missing significant work when we attend doctor and therapy appointments. We could use all the help you can give. THANK YOU so much!!!

ABOUT JADE:

A little background on Jade. I married my wife over 31 years ago and she is a wonderful wife as well as mother to our son!!! She is the most loving and caring person I know and regularly goes out of her way to help others even if it is hard on her.

Jade loves art and photography. She would often spend hours drawing, sketching and painting beautiful works and her photography has graced the pages of performance diesel magazines more times than I can count, many times capturing the perfect image to make the article or even cover stand out. She also loves capturing beautiful landscapes and especially clouds and storms! She is humble and very hesitant to call herself an artist, but her art is very beautiful and liked by anyone who sees it. Jade was often by my side on long, hot days in the sun covering diesel performance events around the country capturing amazing action shots and standing firm even when a pro street drag truck is headed her way making sure she got the best shots possible as the truck hits the retaining wall.

Jade also enjoys baking and cooking and would frequently make a special dessert or meal for someone in need of cheering up or going through difficult times.

She has had a hard life being a passenger in a fatal car accident when she was only 16 years old that broke her back destroying one vertebrae and fracturing four others requiring a lumbar fusion. She has also had to contend with autoimmune diseases and even double full knee replacements along with many other surgeries as her poor body lets her down. Despite all her trauma and pain she is still loving and willing to help anyone that needs a hand.

One of our happiest times together was doing volunteer disaster relief work in Panama City Florida after Hurricane Michael came through in 2018. Jade and I had the opportunity and pleasure of working on a crew with our son as our crew lead repairing houses that were damaged during the hurricane. This was less than a year after she had both knees fully replaced (at the same time) and she thoroughly enjoyed being on the roofs with us laying down new decking, throwing shingles and helping out any way she could.

Even now after Jade's most recent surgery left her with a paralyzed diaphragm and limited use of her arm she still does everything she can to help others. She is a great listener and will spend hours on the phone with a friend that is going through rough times without complaint. 

All in all, my wife is just plain awesome!!!

WHAT JADE'S GOING THROUGH NOW:

I am asking for help to care for Jade's medical needs after surgery in March 2022 to correct Thoracic Outlet Syndrom that was causing her to lose dexterity, strength, and causing a lot of pain in her hands, arms, shoulders and neck. Jade was diagnosed with TOS after having worsening symptoms in her hands, arms, shoulders and neck over the past few years. She went through various physical therapy sessions and worked with various doctors and specialists and MRI testing before nerve conduction tests finally revealed that she has TOS with the right side being worse than the left.

Many doctors are not even familiar with TOS but we met with a Vascular Surgeon that specializes in TOS and after more physical therapy and consulting with him several times he suggested that surgery to remove part of her first rib, some of the scalene muscles in the neck and the pectoralis minor muscle in the chest was the best course of action to prevent the symptoms from worsening to the degree that she would not be able to use her arms. He suggested starting with the right side (since it was worse than the left side) and doing the left side after she recovers from the surgery.

In March of 2022, he performed the surgery, which was supposed to have two short scars and offer much relief from her TOS symptoms. Unfortunately, the results did not meet expectations; Jade woke in the ICU with intense pain, could not move her right arm much at all, and could not take a deep breath. Her hospital stay was expected to be four days but turned out to be eight days, and when she was discharged, she was still unable to move her arm much and could barely breathe. Jade is no stranger to surgery and has recovered successfully from double complete knee replacements enabling her to be active even in volunteer disaster relief work less than a year after that surgery. We expected similar results with this procedure.

Since then, we have seen other specialists and had additional testing done and it appears that somehow the nerve that tells the diaphragm to move is no longer sending the signal (or it isn't being received) and the diaphragm is paralyzed in the UP position crushing her lung and making it very difficult to breathe requiring her to be on supplemental oxygen. This is very difficult for Jade as she used deep breathing techniques to help cope with pain and anxiety but she can no longer take a deep breath, which as you can imagine creates more anxiety... Even with the supplemental oxygen at times her blood oxygen level drops down into the low 80s or even upper 70s causing her heart to race as it trys to maintain proper oxygen levels in the body.

Wearing the nasal canula has caused irritation and dryness which is a constant reminder that she no longer has two fully functioning lungs and draging 40+ feet of tubing around the house snagging on stuff only makes matters more difficult for her. The supplemental oxygen also has taken away much of her joy in baking and cooking as she has to have the oxygen off due to the risk of explosion around the open flames of the burners, which also means that she has to suffer more with my cooking... haha 

Jade has gone through much physical and occupational therapy to help her retrain her arm to work and help get back some strength as well as range of motion. With the therapy things are slowly improving for her arm, but it is still worse than before the surgery. She needs additional therapy but our medical insurance only covers twenty therapy visits per year and we have to pay for anything beyond that out of pocket. Jade could need one or more years of therapy to help get her back to where she was.

Obviously, this was not at all the desired outcome when she (we) agreed to the surgery. To make matters worse, Jade can no longer help me with our automotive deodorizing service or with photography (she can't hold the camera for much more than a few minutes now) when I am covering motorsports events. I have missed many days and partial days of work while spending time in the hospital, at therapy and various doctor appointments, I am happy to be with her at all of her appointments but missing work does put a damper on the budget. I have been forced to put many of our expenses on credit cards which are now nearly maxed and we are coming into our slower time of year (things just don't smell as bad in the colder weather).

On top of all that our Cardiothoracic Surgeon is suggesting another surgery to anchor the diaphragm to the bottom of the chest cavity to give the lung room to expand. Anchoring the diaphragm will not make it work again, in fact it is irreversible and will be permanently nonfunctional on the right side (we were hopefulthat the diaphragm would recover on its own, but testing and time have proven otherwise). The surgeon does not expect that it will recover on its own at this point and not having the surgery risks permanent damage to the lung. Anchoring the diaphragm will give the lung more room to expand from atmospheric pressure, which they hope will allow Jade to lay flat to sleep (she currently has to sleep in an upright position) without feeling like there is an elephant on her chest. They also hope that the lung may work better at getting oxygen into her bloodstream but do not think she will ever be able to be off the supplemental oxygen, she hopefully won't need as much supplemental oxygen, but she will likely still need it.

And, of course like everyone else, our insurance premiums are through the roof (nearly as much as our house payment) and the deductibles, copays and maximum out of pocket all reset as of January 1st so we will have to pay for each doctor's visit, therapy session, medication and even the "rental" of the oxygen concentrator and air tanks that we rely on to keep her alive. And also through the covid pandemic of the last couple years I have lost much of my editorial and photography work like has happened to many people as we all try to cope with this crisis.

HOW WE'LL USE DONATIONS:

I will use any funds received to pay for our ongoing medical expenses (insurance premiums, copays, deductibles, and medical equipment rental) and to try to catch back up on our credit cards and payments. On the lower budget wish list we would like to get Jade a smart ring, smart watch or some other device to constantly monitor her blood oxygen levels since the fingertip device her therapist gave her has stopped working. The smart device would allow her to constantly monitor her blood oxygen level so we could make adjustments to her oxygen flow as needed rather than waiting for oxygen deprivation symptoms to warn us that we need to increase the oxygen flow.

Thank you SOOOO MUCH for any help you are able to give!!! We greatly appreciate any generosity you are able to show to our family!!!!