This is difficult, but my sister could use your help right now

Tl;Dr

Spoiler:

My sister has been placed in induce coma for the last ten days on ICU, my family needs your help

Edit: removed broken link

Edit: repaired link gofundme campaign for my sister

Context:

This have been the two worst weeks of my life.

I have a big family for most modern standards. My younger sister "Isa" lives with my mother in our family home in Caracas. My mother has been in the US the last couple of months visiting my older sister "M" and Isa has been living with her boyfriend at his house. My brother "JA" migrated last year to Europe with his family and my other sister "AM" lives in another city 5 hours away from Caracas. I have been living on my own since early 2017 with my then future wife, which I married back on December 2017, so our family house (where our mother and Isa currently live), is, at the beginning of this story, unoccupied, except for two old dogs and two cats.

Two Thursdays ago, I got a message from Isa, asking me to take care of one of the cats which had died the evening before, she wasn't going to be able to bury / dispose of it herself as she was feeling really ill and was going to check in to the hospital's emergency the next day because of a continuing fever / flu. Come Friday, I go to my family's home, dispose of the poor kitty and message my sister to check how she's doing at the ER and whether she's OK, going to come back soon, etc. Apparently she wasn't done with her emergency tests, and being the great brother that I am, went to the hospital to check-up on her status. Turns out she's in a very rough state, shivering all over and experiencing severe pain in her stomach. Knowing my sister's history of bizarre allergies and quirks, (e.g., she doesn't like and is actively repulsed by sugar / sweet tasting food or beverages, of any kind, not even chocolate) I wasn't that much alarmed, maybe she ate something bad. I left and promised to come back soon.

When I came back an hour or so later, the doctors where talking to her with this grave, concerned look on their faces and voice. Hepatitis, she can't leave and needs to be hospitalized immediately for hydration and close monitoring by the doctors as her hepatic test show alarming high levels of tranzaminase, among other things.

Now, in any other circumstance this would be concerning and worrying, but in Venezuela at this precise moment in time is a bleeping disaster. Getting sick, falling ill to an easily preventable disease anywhere else right now in my country means pulling all the brakes and hoping whatever you got goes away on its own, or at best is easily treated with over the counter medicines. This wasn't going to be the case.

So my sister gets hospitalized during the weekend, the doctor's give her saline solution to hydrate her and some mild pain reliever (she can't be given any medicine as her liver seems to be collapsing ). She can't be given solid food and most of the hospital's non-solid food is fruit based and thus sweet. She's hardly
eating anything Saturday through Sunday, and whatever she eats or drinks she vomits after 5 minutes or so. On Sunday my sister AM arrives to keep her company that night and help her get well. We all feel she should start improving sooner than later as she's being taken care of by a top-notch hospital, for Venezuelan standards. Come Monday I get a message from her: Isa is not OK

I get to the hospital as quick as possible, AM is teary eyed and Isa is mumbling incoherently "mommie, mommie, my mommie" while clutching her tummy in a feverish agony. I have never felt as frightened, miserable and useless as I did in that moment. The doctors arrive and they have to insert a tube on her nose to her stomach so that they can feed her directly, but it's impossible, Isa can't stand the tube for more than half a minute. She pulls it off once, twice, thrice, even while restrained by nurses and doctors and me, gasping for air while sobbing and crying. She doesn't know where she is, she doesn't know what's going on. I cry as well. My father passed away 3 years ago due to cancer, but this moment right now is
the worst moment of my whole life.

The decision is made to sent her to the Intensive care unit.

I have to tiptoe around the status of my sister with our mother on the phone, I tell her she needs to fly back to Venezuela right away, Isa is in pain and needs her mom. The previous Friday I had told her she should be ready to return in case of emergency but after consulting Isa decided against it during the weekend . Her return ticket was for February the 4th and changing it was way too expensive for our sister M, who paid for her trip. Also, she could be looked after by me, her boyfriend and AM while she returned, as most people usually endure hepatitis while resting and sleeping . Again, this wasn't going to be the case.

So Isa is sent to the ICU and finally the doctors come clean, she has an hyper-acute, one-in-a-thousand occurrence of severe Hepatitis type A. Her liver is basically pumping toxic ammonia into every crevice of her body, including her brain. Her lungs are filling with liquid, her hands and feet swollen like hams. I have to convince my sister M to send my mother back home without telling her that she's unconscious. I have to dodge my mother's questions about Isa's status, but she wasn't born yesterday, she knows something's gone wrong. When she finally begin's the 15 hour trip back, I have to break the news to my brother JA over the phone, my voice breaks and I'm a sobbing incomprehensible mess.

My mother arrives the next day, I have to pick her up at the airport, I go with my wife and a family friend to help me explain the situation to her. I let them do all the talking, she cries all the ride up, we drive straight to the hospital. Two days later my sister M joins us as well. I begin to pray for the first time in 30+ years.

That was 9 days ago, during this time Isa has been at the ICU in an induced coma while hanging for her life, the hepatic readings on her liver improve drastically once she's sedated and hooked up to all the machinery, but the rest of her body is a battlefield: Her lungs show signs of infection, she needs steroids that no drug store sells, she's uncoupling from the breathing machine, her heartbeat is decreasing, her blood pressure is rising, etc etc. We've been through hell and back, each day a new threat, a new menace.

Today we finally got a small break, the sedatives had been reduced last couple of days and she was able to respond to simple commands, open fingers, blink, that kind of stuff. Isa's still hooked up but things are beginning to look up for her. Doctors are mostly confident she hasn't suffered brain damage and we can't wait for her to regain conscience and be assessed properly. I want Isa to wake up and hug our mom.

Now, for the difficult part
My sister Isa has been extremely lucky to have worked for one of the doctors that run the hospital she's being treated at, she used to work as a sort of medical visitor / sales representative for a company that used to work with this aforementioned doctor a few years back, so the hospital has treated her so far without demanding upfront payments as every hospital do here when you don't have insurance. Unluckily, she wanted to shift to a different, less expensive policy by the end of the year and wasn't able to finalize the deal before her previous policy ran out. Talk about bad timing.

We're pretty sure we won't be able to get the new policy to cover the expenses, and my family combined can't cover for them either. We're very grateful with the hospital as they've been terrific with our sister, but we dread to ask about how big the bill is been getting, as this is one of the very best clinics in the country and am pretty sure each ICU day is, with luck, about 4 figures each, give or take. We simply don't have this kind of money and I don't know what else to do.

We've set up a gofundme page for Isa, it's managed by my sister M and we hope to get enough contributions from good-willed people out there like yourself, as well as from our relatives, friends and people in general to help Isa in her road to recovery. I feel terribly sorry for doing this, asking for assistance, but these are trying times and circumstances are what they are. My sister means the world to me and she's very much worth any and all trouble.

Thanks in advance everyone for reading through, sorry for the long post, feel free to ask anything and i'll be responding as soon as I can (it's very, very late, but I couldn't go to bed without opening the thread)

That sounds quite rough. Take care.

Sorry to hear about your family's troubles. You have my well wishes.

I've read the entire message and I'll help as best I can. But the link is broken. I'll check in again tomorrow.

Thanks for the heads up guys, link has been fixed now

Dear lord that's horrible. I was expecting something like "my sister is sick" and not that she's in an induced coma. Holy wow that's terrible.

No insurance. And with all that's going on in Venezuela ... worst time possible, indeed.

I'll do what I can and try and signal boost this!

That sounds terrifying, Feeank. Wishing Isa a speedy recovery.

I wish your sister and your family all the best, and I hope she gets well soon. I really hope that, despite the insanity going on in Venezuela, she gets the medication and support she needs.

Donated. Good Luck

Thanks everyone for all the support and concern, I bring good news, yesterday Isa was able to spend the afternoon sitting up on her bed, she's still a bit sedated to help her cope with the breathing tube and the nasal probe, but she's awake and aware, listening and recognizing people, as fast as a sloth but in good spirits. I'll go see her today and hope to find her even better. She'll begin taking robocop food through the probe today as she's been relying on ORS or oral rehydration solution throughout this crisis. Doctors hope to remove the breathing tube tomorrow and hopefully she'll be moved to a regular room soon after.

Also yesterday, the doctors pretty much admitted to my sisters AM and M that they had given up hope early on, for the sheer aggressiveness of the infection Isa endured, they are perplexed by her recovery and we couldn't be happier that Isa has proved them wrong.

The crowdfunding campaign is doing great, thanks for all your support, even if you can't personally contribute right now, you can help a lot by sharing it among your contacts, we need all the help we can get for Isa and everything adds up. Thanks in advance queridos amigos.

Super glad to hear the great news! Looking forward to reading more of it when you can find the time

Donated. Crazy times.

Donated and shared on social media.

Donated; I hope for the best!

I'm in - people in Venezuela have enough crap to deal with right now without health problems as well. Best wishes to your sister, let's hope everyone's good wishes help brighten her day.

Thanks everyone for your support, my sister keeps getting better day by day but unfortunately is still on the ICU. I had hopes that once she had regained consciousness and had the breathing tube removed getting out of there would be easier, but it's been three days since she was extubed and they had to put it back in for a couple hours yesterday since she had a small convulsion the night before. She's fighting but it takes time to recover from what she has endured and ICU are not known for rushing things over.

Thanks again guys, if you want to help but can't donate right now please consider sharing the campaign among your contacts, everything you can do helps, everything you can do adds up. Muchisimas gracias in advance.

Hey Goodjerdom, quick update: Isa may be leaving the ICU today, hope to post a non-flatering picture later on.

Meanwhile and as a token of appreciation for you, check her untrained vocal abilities and questionable face expressions while karaoking here. She'll love to know I'm sharing her karaoke stuff and making fun of her in front of my digital friends.

Thanks everyone again for all your support! it's been the toughest, most tense 4 weeks of my life and a real challenge to endure, but with her on the mend now the bad doesn't seem as terrible. If you haven't yet and would like to donate or help here's the link for the campaign, you can share it on twitter, facebook, instagram, etc, everything helps/counts. Thanks in advance + un abrazo.

Congratulations. I know it will still be a long road but it is great that things are going the right direction.

I was wondering if there were any updates, so I checked the gofundme page.

Quick update February 28:
Isabella has spent the last 12 days hospitalized and recuperating slowly but steadily. Most of her hepatic functions are back to normal, even though her bilirubin values are quite high but normal after what she has been through, according to the doctors. Today she has been able to stand up with help for the first time in a month and a half. We expect her to be released from the hospital before the end of the week.

Thanks for your continued support, please keep sharing the campaign and spreading the message! Isabella still needs all the help she can get, thanks in advance to every contributor, it really means a lot! Even if you can't chip in you can still help by sharing this update. Thank you very much and god bless you.

AUs_TBirD wrote:

I was wondering if there were any updates, so I checked the gofundme page.

Quick update February 28:
Isabella has spent the last 12 days hospitalized and recuperating slowly but steadily. Most of her hepatic functions are back to normal, even though her bilirubin values are quite high but normal after what she has been through, according to the doctors. Today she has been able to stand up with help for the first time in a month and a half. We expect her to be released from the hospital before the end of the week.

Thanks for your continued support, please keep sharing the campaign and spreading the message! Isabella still needs all the help she can get, thanks in advance to every contributor, it really means a lot! Even if you can't chip in you can still help by sharing this update. Thank you very much and god bless you.

Yes, Isa is heading home today thankfully, she will need rehabilitation and use a walking aid for a while, but her condition in general has improved enormously the last 2 weeks. I had to remove myself last couple of weeks from the day-to-day proceedings as I was dealing with severe burn-out from trying to stay on top of the situation while neglecting job/married life. Thanks for keeping up with the case AUs_TBirD! the campaign is still active, I've tried to come up with some sort of strategy to mantain the momentum but I confess to feel like I've already ran out of ideas

Still, you can check up on the campaign here, thanks in advance for any / all contributions, in my sister's and my family name, you guys are the best online community there is and I feel fortunate for having signed up so many years ago. Cheers!

I am so glad! Congradulations to her and your family.