Rachel St. John Standing Tall Again
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Rachel St. John Standing Tall Again: Healer & Saint to Hundreds of Tech Fellows
Rachel St. John to many of us has been a healer, a mentor, a teacher, a friend, and one of the most giving hearts we have ever encountered. With the same dedication to her hundreds of tech and sales leadership students, her family, and friends, we write on Rachel's behalf for her current healing from a rare condition that needs urgent attention.
Rachel's spine collapsed across three vertebrae in February of 2018, causing incredible pain and complicated surgery to endure - leaving Rachel with a spinal cord injury, almost a year of recovery, and no guarantee that her spine would ever be the same again. In December 2021 and January 2022, Rachel's condition began to worsen considerably with increasing pain and loss of mobility. In March of 2022, she was hospitalized by her local neurosurgeon to attempt to control severe pain and do complete spinal studies.
Rachel has been a tireless leadership sales executive in the last 20 years of her career, expanding business for major global brands across diverse technical fields. These last two decades, she has carried a flag of creative out-of-the-box thinking with her proper punk rock flare, outsmarting and outdoing competitors to rise above everyone who underestimated her strength and savvy in the business world. During these years, Rachel realized her purpose in achieving technical and technological sales success was teaching others and advocating for those less seen and never heard to rise with her. After meeting the love of her life, Don, in 2018, she was able to clarify her vision and dream of expanding the landscape of the tech field. For the last four years, Rachel has created methods and coaching to ensure current and future tech and business development leaders are as diverse in gender, race, culture, lgbtqia+, neurodiverse-wise as there are stars in the sky. And she has achieved that, with hundreds of students finding their dream job and leadership roles in companies, from start-ups to established legacy brands, singularly through her help and guidance. As CEO of RSJ Diversity Solutions, LLC, she has helped so many of us achieve our goals by ensuring we believe in the power and authenticity of our voices. Rachel demonstrated how much we matter in an increasingly global working world, and how much we are equally a part of the future of business. Without Rachel, many of us would still be toiling away at mediocrity, not realizing our dreams and passions in careers that imagine us all as leaders of the industry.
The spinal studies in March of 2022 brought devastating news. Rachel has been diagnosed with severe Thoracic Myelopathy, stemming from 10 herniations in the thoracic spine region, running from the base of her neck to below her ribs. Rachel's case is further complicated in that the herniation material from the disks between the vertebrae has surrounded her spinal cord and has calcified to the bone. Myelopathy is a disorder resulting from severe spinal cord compression. Along with the calcification surrounding her spinal cord, Rachel's spinal cord compression is further exacerbated by the ensuing spinal trauma, and uncontrolled growth of bone spurs that cause immeasurable pain, loss of mobility, fine motor dexterity, leading to the inability to work or care for herself. The pain and discomfort Rachel has experienced in 2018 through the current day have exhausted all avenues of pain management, and the complexity of her condition makes her ineligible for non-invasive surgeries, stimulators, or traditional treatments for common disk herniations.
Rachel's local neurosurgeon has referred her to the Heads of Faculty at the University of Florida and Johns Hopkins for an extremely high-risk surgery called an Anterior Transthoracic Corpectomy. This complicated surgery may require multiple surgical teams and has a high risk for paralysis and severe complications, and requires highly uncommon specialization and with 10 levels to be replaced and repaired, can be performed by only a handful of neurosurgical rockstars. Her case is currently being reviewed by these two teams, and we pray that they will accept the challenge. Without extreme intervention, permanent loss of mobility and paralysis are imminent. Rachel has indicated that she will go boldly, fight for every step and do everything within her power to return not just to health, but to coaching and mentoring others.
Surgery at either facility is out of the area and will bring substantial expense. While Rachel and Don do have health insurance, the out-of-pocket costs, co-pays for specialists, hospitalizations, and non-covered mobility equipment, Rachel is unable to work and assistive needs at home have become financially unbearable. Similar surgeries have been estimated at well over $2M, including hospitalization. Even with insurance coverage, this will leave a sizeable debt on top of the currently mounting debt they are incurring.
We are seeking $20,000 for the following costs related to this extremely rare and complex condition:
- Travel (Rachel and Don) and Accommodations for Don for surgery and/or continued surgical consultations, to allow Don to continue to be by Rachel's side
- Long Term Rehabilitation
- In-Home Support/Home Health Care to ease Don's burden
- Continued Access to all avenues of Physical and Mental Health Care for Rachel to stay strong through this journey
-Assistive Devices and In-Home Accommodations as Required due to Rachel's continued deterioration
-Assistance with Living and Home Expenses
If you would like to assist with Rachel and Don's financial burden, any donation through GoFundMe would be greatly appreciated. All funds raised will go directly to Rachel's medical costs and related travel expenses for Don, relief of their financial burden, and support Rachel's desire to return to her consultancy, continue changing lives and bring others' dreams to reality.
On behalf of Rachel and Don, their closest friends, their children and family, and her Tech Fellows family, we appreciate the outpouring of love, prayers, and support shown over the past few weeks and undoubtedly, in the months to come.
Your generosity and care are greatly appreciated and more information on this condition can be found at the following links:
Organizer
Friends of RSJ and Don Knop
Organizer
Ocala, FL