On July 9th, my life changed forever. The first and second picture are a little over 5 months apart

What started as severe abdominal pain that I thought was kidney stones turned into a nightmare I could never have imagined. I drove myself to the ER, and the next thing I remember, weeks had passed — I had been kept medically unconscious as my body fought for its life.

Doctors discovered a small blockage in my colon and performed surgery, but a missed perforation above the repair causing bile and stool to leak freely into my abdomen, sending me into septic shock. Over the next few weeks, I went septic twice, battled pneumonia twice, endured 7 major surgeries, and fought through more infections than I can count and being intubated 9 times.

In total, I spent 75 days in three different hospitals, including a rehabilitation hospital where I had to relearn how to eat, stand, and walk. I lost 58 pounds and was unrecognizable — a shadow of who I was.

Today, I’m home, working hard to recover with the help of home health nurses and physical therapy. I now live with an ostomy bag and am learning to adjust to this new reality. Recently I got an infection and we learned that I have a fistula in my wound and might need emergency surgery or be put back on a picc line for 6-8 weeks. But right next now I’m just taking antibiotics and have home health 3 times and my son does it the other 4, changing and cleaning my wound and pack the small hole in the big wound.

While I’m deeply grateful to be alive, recovery has come with enormous financial strain. I was employed full-time before this happened, and my company has given me unpaid leave through FMLA and the ADA. But with months of missed work, mounting medical bills even with great insurance and I have haven’t even gotten the big bills from the hospital yet and ongoing costs for ostomy supplies, co-pays, big insurance premiums and with the new year comes a new deductible to meet and increasing my premiums and Feb 1st I have to switch to Cobra insurance which is going to be 3x the amount that have been paying. I’ve just paid in full in full the smaller bills and set up a payment plan on all the big ones! And looking into SSN disability.But I am actually really wanting to go back to work! I might have to go back to school and look at a different career path! My current job I’ve been with over two years and is a very very physically demanding and outside. I really run the risks of damaging my kidneys because without a small intestine,my fluid’s cannot be absorbed and  hydrate correctly. My son and I are struggling just to keep a roof over our heads and food on the table.

I’ve never asked for help like this before, and always try to help people as much as I can, but we are truly in desperate need. Any amount — no matter how small — will help us stay afloat while I recover and work toward returning to work, which won’t happen until later this year or try to find a less physical job. As I await until next July to have another major surgery done and have my Ileostomy reversed.

If you can’t give financially, your thoughts, prayers, and shares mean the world to us! Your guy’s thoughts and words of encouragement and prayers have helped more than anybody will ever know. I’ve tried posting this on other platforms and oh my hell, people are mean and nasty over there! Not to me but everybody else! I am so so so Sooooooograteful for all your kind words and encouragement has been soooooooooo greatly appreciated and it’s helped me get through this stuff. I don’t know what’s worse the physical or mental side is so hard! I had a colonoscopy 5 months prior to this and it showed everything was great, not even a poylp. So I was doing my part to prevent this. I do have any attorney to sue the surgeons and the hospital. It will take take years but it does feel good having someone going to bat for me

From the bottom of my heart, thank you for taking the time to read my story and for any kindness you can offer. I truly hope you and your families had a great Holiday season, and I hope this is your best, most uplifting and joyous year ever