Hi everyone,
 

My name is Devin. I'm a 41-year-old male living in beautiful Panama City Beach, Florida.
I debated for a long time whether I wanted to come on here and share my story. Honestly, this is something I never imagined I would have to do, but life sometimes puts us in situations we never expected. I was recently diagnosed with liver and kidney failure, along with gastritis, gastrointestinal disease, gastric ulcers, and severe erosion of the lining of my stomach. All of this damage was caused by alcohol.
I never thought in a million years that I would find myself in a position like this. One day, I fainted in my home and was rushed to the emergency room. While I was there, three doctors walked into my room and delivered the worst news of my life. I didn't want to believe what I was hearing. I denied it until they showed me the results and I saw everything with my own eyes. They told me I needed a new liver and that I potentially had only three years left to live.
The left side of my liver was so severely damaged that it could no longer heal itself. I had fatty tissue and hardening of the liver, jaundice, gastrointestinal disease, gastritis, gastric ulcers, and an eroded stomach lining. It was pretty much every piece of bad news you could receive in one sitting. It took me a while to process everything. The doctors gave me one option: enter a treatment program and take medication that they weren't even 100% certain would work. At that point, getting a liver transplant quickly wasn't a realistic option, even if I had qualified. I agreed to begin treatment.
It was probably one of the most painful experiences I have ever endured. I literally felt like I was dying every single day, and in reality, my body was fighting for its life. I prayed harder than I ever had before and asked God to please give me another chance. As the months went by, the side effects were absolutely awful. I was told the treatment could produce effects similar to those experienced during cancer treatment. But I had no other choice. I had to fight. After completing the treatment program, I received news that changed everything. The remaining healthy portion of my liver had responded, and my doctors determined that I could continue living with approximately half of my liver functioning. It was something I could work with.
I broke down and cried my eyes out. I had just been given another chance at life. I began the long process of recovery but now things decided to take a turn for the worst i am now dealing with mesentric Ischemia. I'm still dealing with the damage that was done to my other organs and the physical and mental exhaustion that comes with everything I've been through last time. Prayer is powerful so please send as many as possible. This has been the hardest experience of my life, aside from losing my father a few years ago. As much as there were moments when I felt ready to go be with him in heaven, something inside me kept telling me to stay, keep fighting, and remember that I was still needed here. I believe God has a reason for keeping. Again I could say this a million times I did not want to start any kind of GoFundMe so they talked me into setting this up as a fundraiser to help me with minor things such as Basic Essentials to get through each day groceries possibly a couple bills that I've gotten behind on due to lack of work and my physical state I never wanted to be in this position I'm used to working two or three jobs constantly working all I did was work work work but now with the strength I have I'm not able to do that at the moment so I have missed countless hours of work and it has put me in an extreme amount of desperation with medical bills and everything piling up on top I didn't even want to put an amount on there because I don't like to even think about something like that but I was as honest as I could be with the amount I think that's feasible for me to catch up a little bit and be able to stock some food and knock out a cell phone bill or something that I may be behind on any penny counts it doesn't even have to be funds I've had churches set up food drives for me so if there's anybody out there and who feels they could send any kind of positivity or help my way it would be greatly appreciated God bless everybody to the ones who do feel the need to donate I will keep track of everybody's name and I will be responding to all of you I will not be starting anything again after this im just grateful to still be here. I was able to get some of my hospital bills which was $230,000 knocked down but not much and I applied for Grant programs through the church which will knock a percentage down as well but the treatment program plus all the medications plus all the doctor's appointments it just got overwhelming and unbearable to the point where I didn't know how to survive through the day and that's when I finally decided to go on here and do this I'm very grateful to have the people I do have in my life and I'm very thankful for anybody who is going to be a part of this journey God bless I love you all please stay in touch I'll keep everybody updated I'm going to continue to fight this fight I have God behind my back and I have y'all so I'm going to keep pushing until we finish this thing out thank you everybody God bless you
 

Devin Paul