Please help support David in his Recovery Journey

Hello my name is Chelsey Reyes, thank you for taking a moment to read our story. My husband and I are experiencing a difficult and challenging health crisis. As some may know David and I were recently married and last year in March, were able to purchase a condominium together. In June, David was diagnosed with Compressive Myelopathy and had to have spinal surgery.

During his first surgery he remained employed and partially recovered. In November we noticed that David was starting to experience similar symptoms. In being transparent with his job, David shared that he had recurring symptoms and needed further testing. In the process of him applying for FMLA, coincidentally David was laid off prior to submitting the documents. After further testing it was determined that he had additional compressions from the Cervical (neck) area to the Thoracic (mid-back) area of the spine. His surgeon determined to address the Thoracic Compressions since they were deemed the most urgent.

His surgery took place February 28th and unfortunately the surgery did not go as planned and when my husband woke up he could no longer move his legs. An MRI was done immediately after he noticed and fortunately it was determined his spinal cord was still intact. However, he has a great amount of inflammation and was transferred to ICU and started on a high regimen of steroids with the hopes of reducing the swelling. The doctors said that he could possibly walk again but it could be a very slow recovery that could take up to a year or so.

As previously shared, my husband was laid off and we were paying COBRA to continue his health insurance coverage. Now that he will need extensive rehabilitation and additional doctor visits, we can’t afford to keep paying the COBRA coverage since he can’t work and my income doesn’t cover all of our bills. We applied for state insurance and were denied, we think it’s because prior to the surgery he applied for unemployment. I recently met with the rehab and they said if he is denied or if we can’t pay the COBRA he will be considered out of pocket. This would cost us $2700 a day which needless to say is beyond our means. He still has medical coverage until the end of this month but we’re not sure what we will do after this month.

Any money donated will be used to pay for medical expenses and any additional bills we will incur while David recovers. Any amount you’re willing to contribute is so greatly appreciated. If you’re not able to contribute money at this time, sharing our story with your friends and family would mean so much to us! God bless you all for taking the time to read our story.