Whitney Nelson Recovery Fund

It’s been 2 weeks and 5 days since my big sister Whitney Nelson was admitted to the ER and tonight will be the 20th night she’ll spend alone in the ICU. We are all still processing the last 2 weeks and if I said it’s been hard, that would be an understatement. It’s been devastating and heartbreaking for all of us but most of all for Whitney.

Whitney developed a head cold towards the beginning of August. After about a week she felt like she was almost completely better, and then she got a handful of mosquito bites while gardening. 3 days later she developed a fever of 103, and by that night she had lost her vision and the use of her arms and legs. By the time we rushed her to the ER she had developed meningitis.

Over the course of the last 2 weeks, Whitney has endured every kind of test you can imagine and a few lifesaving procedures. She became severely febrile and lost the ability the talk, move or breathe on her own. She developed pneumonia from being intubated and breathing with a bipap machine. After a week of endless unknowns and tests, she finally received a diagnosis of West Nile Virus. She doesn’t remember much about that first week as she was sedated and had a persistent fever. During this time we were praying every night that she would make it through the night. She aspirated twice and now has a feeding tube and a tracheostomy. She also currently has blurry vision.

She is unable to speak to us although she is aware of everything that has happened. She has already missed one major family life event due to her being hospitalized and is unable to verbally express herself during this difficult time. Whitney has a long road ahead of her to completely recover from all of this and we are all counting our blessings that she is making small improvements every day.

She will need extensive rehab in order to regain use of her muscles. This process will include:

- retraining herself to swallow

-talk

-move her body

-breathe on her own

There is a possibility that she will have long lasting or permanent neurological changes such as depression, vision loss, memory loss and motor dysfunction.

We love her very much and we feel blessed to still have her here with us and that we have been able to support her mentally and emotionally. But the unfortunate reality is that we are not able to support her financially to the extent that she will most assuredly need.

Whitney is a Veteran of the Coast Guard and currently a full time student. Before falling ill she was a few weeks away from finishing her degree. She’s the life of the party everywhere she goes. She is the most gentle, beautiful soul who makes everyone feel loved and accepted and gives everything she has for the ones that she loves. We miss our Whitney so much and we know that she will get back to being her vibrant self because she is so strong. But we are now asking that our community give back to her.

The money we raise will be used to help pay for the hospital bills she has accrued in the ICU and her rehab facility fees. More specific updates about where the funds are going will be added as soon as we start receiving bills and know a breakdown of how much this is all going to cost. We expect these bills to be exorbitant and we would appreciate any amount you’re able to give. Even if that’s in the form of a simple share so that we can tell Whitney’s story and raise as much as we can to make her post hospital transition as comfortable as possible for her.

Thank you so much for all of your love and support. <3

***** UPDATE *****

Within the first 2 hours of posting, Whitney's fundraiser reached the goal we set for her. We are incredibly heartened by the outpouring of love and support she's received from all of you and we can't thank you enough. After receiving an initial estimate of what her bills will be, we realized that we severely underestimated her goal.

Her hospital stay will cost anywhere from $100-$300k when all is said and done and we do not yet know how much of that will be covered by insurance.

The kind of rehab she will need could cost her out of pocket upwards of $100k.

It is for these reasons with this new information that we will be raising her goal. We hope that you will continue to share her story so that we can help her as much as we possibly can. From the bottom of our hearts, thank you.

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