Support Richard's next surgery and recovery

My name is Janet, and I am setting up this fund for my husband Richard Johnston. Richard is a people person and loves to help others whenever he can. He loves working on cars, and that has been his career for most of his life, although people often tell him he should have been a comedian, since he also loves to tell jokes and stories, and can be quite funny. He loves fishing and drawing, and animals and small children love him.

Right now Richard needs some help with his medical situation. About two years ago, a large man fell on Richard, taking him down to the curb, where he landed on his hip, with both his weight and the weight of the other man on top of his hip. This created enough hip damage that he ended up needing hip replacement surgery. The surgery site got infected less than 2 weeks after the surgery and blew open. We spent the next several months going to a wound clinic each week, and on the other 6 days of each week, I got to pack his wounds at home. He had tunneling wounds 5 inches long going down, about 3 inches long going up, a shorter tunnel to the side, and 2 inches going straight in, which had to be flushed out and packed every day.

Once those wounds finally healed enough, he had the first stage of the hip replacement surgery done, where they pulled out the infected hip implant and put in a temporary spacer filled with antibiotics. That surgery took 8.5 hours to complete and included having to control-break his leg to get the first implant out. During this time he was not supposed to put any weight on his leg, at least at first. He was put on a PICC line for the next few months to help get the infection cleared up.

Shortly after that surgery, he lost the feeling and strength in one of his arms and fell several times. Turns out he needed a spine fusion surgery, due to herniated bulging discs. During one of his falls he fell and broke his other leg, so now he couldn’t put weight on either leg for several weeks.

At a follow-up from the spine surgery, they found a large growth in his face, which needed to be surgically removed to biopsy it. It was benign, thankfully, but added the additional surgery recovery time.

Thirteen months after the initial hip replacement surgery, we got to the final hip replacement surgery, which went well, but again, there was still recovery time needed. Shortly after this surgery, Richard needed to have a severely deviated septum fixed, so he could breathe more easily.

A year and a half after the initial hip surgery he tried to go back to work, but his foot neuropathy, which he has been dealing with and being able to manage for years, was suddenly so bad that he couldn’t even stand on his feet.

Now he is needing another spine surgery, as soon as possible, since he has almost completely lost feeling in his hand, and lost strength in his arm and hand.

We need to finish paying off the previous spine surgery bill for the surgeon to see him, and that is just under $1100. There will be other costs associated with another surgery as well. Richard still has almost $2200 to go to reach his out-of-pocket maximum, so we will have to come up with that.

The rest we are needing is to help cover any of the time I (Janet) may have to take off to care for Richard, including getting him to and from appointments, physical therapy, etc. So far I have been able to use leave time to cover doctor’s visits, getting him to and from surgery, etc., but I have used up my leave time, and won’t accumulate as much as I will need for now. I can use FMLA leave, but that will be leave without pay, and we have pared down our expenses to the bare minimum. The next place we could cut down is to go semi-off grid (no phone or internet, and those are cut down as far as we can get them right now). We have been blessed to be getting food assistance from a food bank, so we can pay our basic living expenses and make payments on the medical bills from my income.

Thank you for reading our story. Any help you may decide to give is greatly appreciated! If you prefer to donate privately, please contact me.