Supporting the Torigian Family

As many of you know, my brother Mark Torigian came down with COVID just before Christmas. While his wife and two sons managed to get through with moderate symptoms, Mark continued to get increasingly sick each day, despite being fully vaccinated. He entered the hospital on Christmas Day after watching Colin and Jack open presents, assuming he just needed additional oxygen. Mark was initially seen in the ER and admitted to Lowell General. By the next day, he had been transferred to the ICU with COVID-induced pneumonia. Things quickly spiraled from there (or at least it felt like it), which resulted in Mark being completely sedated and placed on a ventilator within two days of going to the hospital. Mark appeared to be doing better at one point, was taken off the vent for several hours and attempts were made to reduce his sedation. This was unsuccessful, and unfortunately led to infection. He was then placed back on the ventilator eight hours later, and conversations began to happen about getting him to Boston.

Mark was transferred to Beth Israel in Boston on January 1, 2022. While he narrowly avoided being placed on ECMO (a machine that is used when all other medical options have been exhausted), he remains critically ill at this time. Mark appears to be making very small improvements each day, with lessening his ventilator settings and slowly weaning from the most powerful sedatives. Mark will likely transition to a tracheostomy in the coming weeks, which will allow him to be more comfortable while still receiving support to his lungs.

Mark is young, healthy, and had been fully vaccinated against COVID. This entire nightmare was completely unexpected to all of us who know and love him. Mark is a husband to Stephanie and a father to his two young boys, Colin and Jack. He is facing several more weeks of the most critical healing, with an unknown future beyond that in terms of overall and long term recovery.

My sisters and I have started this GoFundMe to support Mark, Stephanie, Colin and Jack as they focus on getting Mark better, getting him home, and getting him healed. We are hoping to alleviate the burden and stress of financial concerns for the family so that their focus can be on one another. They are facing months of lost income on top of what we can assume to be astronomical medical bills. Stephanie has been taking care of the boys completely on her own since Christmas Day while balancing the stress, anxiety, and fear of her husband being critically ill. She was unable to see him in person until yesterday, January 10th, sixteen days after he entered the ER. She will also be unable to see him again in person for the foreseeable future due to newly implemented COVID restrictions. Anything we can do to lessen the burden on her is what we will do.

Everyone who meets Mark loves him. He is funny, generous, and easy-going. He is the best dad to his boys, and we want to get him home to them as soon as possible.