Ron's Open-Heart Surgery And Expenses
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Hello everyone, this fundraiser is for Ron Carder. Ron was born April 10th, 1957. He is my father in-law, a husband to Sharon, and proud father of 5. Ron has a strong passion for god, family, and the outdoors. Ron is a prior Army veteran and was awarded the Army Commendation, Army Achievement and Army Good Conduct Medals. Ron also went on to complete the Trifecta Spartan Races, loves to Bible Teach and part of the Maryland Brittany Club. He is never judgmental and would give people the shirt off his back. He would rather give than receive and would always put himself second if it meant helping others. He always forgave and believed that god would help lead the way and always do what was meant to be.
Over the past few months he has been feeling short of breath, experiencing many headaches and not feeling well. Ron started to feel something was not quite right. He would say things like “I use to be able to run through the Appalachian trail just like a spartan, but now I get so winded” while training his body to compete in Tough Mudders and every Spartan race he could get his hands on. He loves to run around playing with the grandbabies chasing them with pool noodles and having pool noodle sword fights. Going to all their sporting events and playing football and catch in the yard and taking them fishing down at the creek and long hikes around Lake Frederick VA or through the woods to the overlook at Harpers Ferry WV. It is amazing he could do all these fun things but now he catches himself taking longer than normal breaks to catch his breath and having to rest for extended periods of time. As hard headed as a Carder can be sometimes, he would always try to push himself to get through it and just deal with it until one day it was just too much. He said “I train and train, I know I’m getting stronger! I know I can do it; but I feel over the last few months I’ve been going downhill and don’t understand why”. So that’s when Ron decided to go see a cardiologist.
Over the last few months or so, June - August time frame, the cardiologists performed blood tests, dye injections, chest x-rays and all the necessary tests and procedures to determine the cause of his symptoms he was experiencing. To Ron and the family, we were thinking that this was just going to be a normal checkup but we were wrong. The cardiologists gave us the bad news and determined that the cause of his symptom was linked to his Aortic Valve and main artery to the heart. The Aortic Valve was closing up preventing adequate blood flow to the heart and that the main artery entering the heart was located in an abnormal position, similar to a 90* angle instead of going straight into the heart like it should be. This is causing the heart to work major overtime to pump what blood and oxygen it could throughout the body and to the brain. The surgeon determined that open-heart surgery was needed as soon as scheduling permitted which was being scheduled for mid to late September.
Last weekend on Aug.31st during a family event after playing with the kids Ron noticed something was wrong and he lost consciousness. We immediately checked for a pulse which was good and called the ambulance. Fortunately, after about a minute or two he gained consciousness and once the ambulance arrived, they performed an EKG and he was admitted into Frederick Memorial Hospital. The hospital performed many tests to include CAT scans and various medical procedures to inspect his heart and brain for clots. Fortunately, none were found and the hospital concluded that he had passed out from lack of blood flow and oxygen to the heart and brain.
Ron is now scheduled to have open heart surgery on September 9th 2019 at Sinai Hospital in Baltimore MD to reconstruct his main artery to the heart and replace his Aortic Valve. Even though Ron has medical insurance Ron and his wife Sharon will be left having to pay somewhere between $20,000 - $40,000 out of pocket to include loss of income from missing work for at least 6 weeks and additional expenses like transportation costs to and from the hospital, hotel cost for his wife Sharon and food expenses.
We ask that any donation would be greatly appreciated.
Thank you!
Fundraising team: Hearts For Ron (4)
Nate Lewis
Organizer
Garretts Mill, MD
Ronald Carder
Beneficiary
Jason Kelly
Team member
Melissa Carder
Team member
Monica Lewis
Team member