Steve Marple Medical Expense Fund

First, I want to thank you for taking the time to read this. If you know us as a family, or especially our father Steve as a man, you know that asking for help like this is not in our comfort zone. We are so appreciative of all the love and support people have already provided, and thank you in advance for your support. Some of you know Steve from fishing, some of you through camping over the years, some of you through riding motorcycles, golfing, through work, from his long time presence in Bayfield, some of you as family. All of you know the strong, proud, hardworking, independent, fiercely good, always doing and standing up for what is right, man that we are proud to call Dad.

On Sunday, July 12th Steve Marple and his partner in life Janet Clark were in a motorcycle accident in between Bayfield and Pagosa Springs, they were both wearing their helmets. Steve has ridden a motorcycle for as long as I can remember (he has ALWAYS been a stickler for safety), and we may never know exactly what happened that caused them to lose control that day. All we know is Steve lost control of the bike, they both fought to stay upright as long as they could before eventually being ejected from the motorcycle and sliding over 200 feet on the dry ground. Janet suffered severe road rash, a concussion, rib injuries, and other physical injuries. She is recovering well and has recovered enough to be able to spend time with Steve in the hospital.

Steve was airlifted to Albuquerque to be in their level 1 trauma center. He sustained a traumatic brain injury from the accident and had brain hemorrhaging. He had a collapsed lung and needed a breathing tube inserted at the scene due to inability to protect his airway. He has fractured vertebrae in his lower back and neck, fractured ribs, ligament damage in his neck, a multitude of bruises and cuts, road rash, and other injuries. Currently, his 2 biggest battles are physical and mental. On the physical side he is battling to breathe unassisted again, a fight that isn’t helped by his intense case of pneumonia and a lifetime of smoking. On the mental side, he is fighting the initial traumatic brain injury, a stroke, and ongoing ICU induced delirium.

In regard to his lungs, Steve has had a tracheostomy to help his long term breathing recovery. At this point he is still hooked up to a ventilator but the doctors are beginning to trial having him off of the ventilator and breathing with less assistance (he went 36 hours off on his first attempt!) This process will be slow going and will take care at very specialized Long Term Acute Care facilities. The next steps will be to get him off the ventilator and breathing only through an oxygen mask around his trach. Eventually, the goal will be for him to breathe unassisted again.

In regards to his brain, we still have a lot of uncertainty. Over his almost 4 weeks in the ICU we have seen some progress. At this point he is able to move all 4 limbs, make eye contact, and nod yes or no to questions. In the last few days we have been able to see his personality shine through and he has been taking steps forward in his cognition, even trying to speak occasionally! He has been transferred to a quieter floor of the hospital which is helping his delirium. Going forward, it will be a lot of work with physical therapists, speech therapists, and occupational therapists to re-teach his brain to do all of the things it knew before this. This is a long, uncertain road with no guarantees at the end of it, but we remain hopeful and optimistic for his recovery. We plan to do everything we can to give him the best care and opportunities to recover. As our mom put it “Steve Marple is the hardest headed man I’ve ever met, AND he was wearing a helmet, he’ll be okay.”

We have a long road of recovery ahead of us with much uncertainty. We don’t know if it will be 1 month, 2 months, or many months until Steve is able to fully recover. The doctors can’t give us much insight, especially into his mental function, outside of watching how he progresses over time. With this much uncertainty comes questions about the future financially as the types of facilities that can accommodate and provide him the appropriate level of care are not cheap. Regardless, we are thankful for any help we get and hold on to every hope we have. We plan to use any funds raised from this GoFundMe for hospital expenses, long term care center costs, and any ongoing costs should he reach the point of returning home.

While we have the chance, we urge all of you to reach out to your loved ones. In the last few weeks we have been forced to be aware of how fragile the lives we live are and how easily we take relationships with those we love for granted. Life can change inexplicably at any moment. It is so easy to get caught up in life and not talk as much as you’d like to with those that really matter, as people who are dealing with that now all we can say is call your mom, dad, wife, husband, sister, brother, or whoever it is and tell them you love them.