Keith has worked for Sho-Link for the past 7 years as a lead and traveling supervisor. His work has taken him wherever the team needed him, supporting trade show installations & the people working alongside him.
Keith woke up on a Sunday and after having breakfast he started to vomit. Ambulance was called and was hospitalized on May3rd with Pancreatitis at St. Joseph’s Hospital in Joliet. Three days later theydecided to transfer him to Rush hospital in Chicago into the ICU, as they discovered it was Necrotizing Pancreatitis, in other words his pancreas was dying. This caused his liver failure, where he had to be on dialysis daily. On May 15th he moved to a regular room. On May 16th he was pale and weak, and ended up having an arterial rupture in his stomach and had lost a lot of blood. This was the first time he almost died.
He needed 6 units of blood and his artery repaired. He was put into a comatose state for about 5 days and was extubated and after a couple days his blood pressure dropped drastically and almost died the second time. During this time, he had a loss of oxygen to his brain and had brain swelling and some brain bleeding, and the doctors were unsure if he would even make it.
After a few days he started waking up and luckily had no brain damage. He ended up in the ICU for a total of 56 days and hospitalized for a total of 90 days. His diagnosis listed was all due to the Pancreatitis with infected Necrosis: Acute hypoxic respiratory failure, acute renal failure, shock liver, gastric artery hemorrhage, intra -abdominal abscess, pulmonary embolism and DVT in both legs.
He spent 56 days in ICU and almost passed twice during that time. Keith spent another 34 days in the hospital recovering. After 90 days, Keith is home doing rehab three times a week with in-home care. He is having to relearn how to talk and walk and has a long road to recovery.
Even after the 80% insurance coverage, Keith & Aimee have mounting medical bills after the 90 day hospital stay. While Keith focuses on rebuilding his strength and regaining the ability to walk and talk, he and Aimee are also facing the financial impact of his extended hospitalization and ongoing recovery. Assistance from the RSMGC would help ease some of that immediate burden and allow Keith and Aimee to keep their focus on where it is needed most: on recovery.
