The McGough Family

The McGough family of five is facing some unexpected challenges during this time. Erika injured her knee playing volleyball for fun back in early September (complete ACL tear, partial MCL tear, and meniscus tear-triple whammy!) But what started off as a straightforward injury and repair has since taken a couple left turns. Erika had surgery on October 16th and was sent home that day without complications. However, a week later, Erika started to experience excruciating pain. Over the weekend, she developed a fever, chills, nausea, incision site redness and tenderness, and her pain steadily grew worse. Her post-op appointment Monday was canceled and rescheduled due to snow, and unable to bear the pain any longer Erika went to the ER on Tuesday where she was stabilized and scheduled for a follow-up with her surgeon the next morning. At her follow-up, Erika’s incision burst open and began bleeding and weeping pus; it was clearly infected. The surgeon admitted Erika that day to wash everything out in the OR Wednesday evening. It was discovered in the OR that not only was the incision infected, but Erika had sepsis as well. Thursday evening things took a turn for the worse with Erika’s vitals unstable: a fever of 103.8, a resting heart rate of 124, low oxygen, and high blood pressure. Nurses were thankfully able to keep her out of the ICU and Erika was sent to the OR again the following day and ended up staying a total of 6 days in the hospital. The cultures from the leg also uncovered a staph infection, which Erika has to manage through an infectious disease doctor by taking antibiotics through a PICC line for a total of 6 weeks. Her two school aged children have been moved to virtual learning at home due to covid, and the family just received news this week that Danzig’s job has been furloughed due to covid as well. As Erika cannot drive at this time or weight bear in her leg they have opted for Erika to independently administer the IV antibiotics at home. By the end of treatment the medication alone will cost 3k. Furthermore, Erika’s incision still has not closed, and it’s extremely likely that next week she will once again be in the OR for the surgeon to wash out the site yet again. Prayers and positive thoughts are incredibly appreciated at this time. If you feel called to support them financially, please donate. They have been incredibly blessed by their church family dropping off meals and checking in on them through this time, and by Erika’s parents who were able to come help during the time she was hospitalized.