Help Support Dave & Andrea Riegler

Those of you who know the Riegler family may also know that Andrea’s husband Dave has been fighting a 10 year battle with kidney disease.  After an unsuccessful transplant, he basically lives without any kidney function, and requires dialysis 3x per week.  About a month ago, Dave was unexpectedly hospitalized with a fever, which turned out to be a life threatening blood staph infection.  After a week in the hospital, he was finally released, finally cleared of infection but with a compromised dialysis port.  Barely a week had passed, and just as Dave was feeling better, he ended up in an ambulance to the hospital with severe abdominal pains.  The surgeons discovered that one of his kidneys, covered in cysts, had ruptured and caused severe internal bleeding.  This has nearly taken his life four times, even after transfusions and two successful surgeries to assess damage to other organs and remove the kidney.

 Dave is still on a ventilator in ICU at Vanderbilt Hospital in Nashville, fighting multiple side effects that have continued to cause set-backs to his recovery.  It is still too soon to know when he will be downgraded to stable, but at this point, it’s easy to see that Andrea will be out of work for enough time to cause financial hardship.  The family is dependent on Andrea’s income which will soon reduce dramatically as she begins to take (unpaid) family leave in order to support Dave’s recovery.  Ashlee, their daughter who is a freshman in college, has also been out of work throughout this touch and go crisis.

 If you are interested in helping with a donation, it will help ensure that Andrea and Ashlee can focus on Dave’s recovery and less on financial hardships of reduced income and increased medical bills.   Please keep the Riegler family in your prayers; for more information and updates please sign up with https://www.caringbridge.org/visit/bigdave and “follow” in order to receive updates.