Funding Paul Rutkowski's After Life Expenses

Introduction:

On the morning of 4/22/2019, my father Paul Rutkowski passed away. Paul went in to a surgical clinic for an angioplasty, which was to clear the beginning of a blockage in the leg where a stent had been previously placed. It's a minimally invasive procedure and requires little sedation. He appeared to be fine during recovery, awake and talking. However, suddenly his heart stopped working, a rare side effect of the procedure, and the doctors were unable to bring him back. My family and I are looking to raise money for the after life costs of Paul, such as cremation, bills, and general family expenses due to poverty and his social security disability being our primary source of income. 


Paul's Illnesses, and the challenges following those illnesses:



Though my father Paul had been chronically ill for around 13 years, his passing was unexpected. Among the health issues he had, ranging from COPD, chronic blood clotting due to Factor V Leiden, depression, anxiety, being pre-diabetic, and leading a sedentary life due to his illnesses, there's one that sticks out: Nephrogenic Systemic Fibrosis. This is a rare, man-made disease that's been confirmed in less than 500 people in the world . It causes scarring of tissues from the inside out, and was caused by gadolinium dye being used during an MRI. This made his skin feel hard, like a bumpy tree trunk, affected his ability to move, and made every surgery an ordeal. (For further reading on the rare disease of NSF, click here.) Lawyers told us we didn't have a case due to the statute of limitations running out before the effects of NSF were prominent, the hospital bills piled up, and Paul lost his primary source of income working as a truck driver.


Who Paul was:

My father holding my older brother Jakob in 1992, before his illnesses. 

A portrait of my dad in 2012.


Paul was a tremendously kind, loving, hard-working, and smart man. He worked for many years as a truck driver with over 1,000,000 accident free miles (which led to him developing all of those blood clots). He loved music, old arcade games, and movies tremendously. He also loved to cook, and he'd consistently make these wonderful dinners, whether they be Polish, Italian, American, or something like fish, which he didn't even like to eat! Paul shared this love with me, and we cooked together many times, including cooking steak on Easter, the day before he passed. Most of all, he loved his family, and supported all of us in so many ways. He'd attend therapy with me when I had to go to it for my own mental illness, he'd teach my brother how to work on cars and how to drive, and he'd support my mother by cooking and working on improving our old house tirelessly before he became ill. He was so talented, and such a jack-of-all-trades.  



Paul was very strong both in body and spirit. He had to fight through so many surgeries, stay up to date on visiting a ton of specialists, and keeping up with his 20+ prescriptions, all while caring for us how he could. With all his body has gone through, ranging from infections such as cellulitis, complications with surgery, and his rare disease, it's made it so every procedure had been strain on him. This is especially in the past 4 years. Recovery hasn't been guaranteed each time, and he's spent the previous 3 summers completely in a hospital and the a nursing care center after having an operation. I never took many photographs with him when he went through this, but the images of him being bedridden, being delirious after a surgery, being in the hospital frequently, or him crying are permanently etched in my mind, and my family's mind. I'm thankful that his passing was comparatively peaceful, that we celebrated Easter as a family, and that he was happy the day before he died.


Thank you:

In closing, I want to reiterate how thankful I am for you taking the time to read this and learn Paul's story. The easiest way to help is by donating to this fundraiser. However, regardless of whether you're able to donate or not, my family and I thank you from the bottom of our hearts. Have a blessed day.