Donate to Stephen and Janelle’s Medical Relief!

Product Description

Johnstown, Colorado, United States

Supporters

Janelle is a 14 year Veterinary Technician, she has devoted her life to the welfare of animals and to giving back to the community. She has given to her community through trapping feral cats for spay and neuter, volunteering her skills for multiple nonprofits and shelters for any needs they have, does fundraising and organizing for various shelters, volunteered doing fundraising and providing comfort and resources to families with children undergoing cancer treatments, trained and handled a therapy dog that helped children with learning disabilities and adults with terminal illnesses or undergoing chemotherapy, and she volunteered 20 hours a day doing flood relief for the disastrous 2013 Colorado floods. She is currently working as a teacher for the Veterinary Technician program for a local community college. Stephen has had a career in public service, working in multiple careers including Emergency Medical Technician, Medical Assistant, Phlebotomist, Pharmacy Technician, and most recently as an Emergency Services Dispatcher. When his Father died in a freak car accident when he was 18 years old he became determined to leave the world a better place than when he came into it. He has volunteered his time and effort working for causes such as coordinating and fundraising for the local library, fundraising for the local school districts, coordinating and fundraising for families with children undergoing cancer treatments, and volunteering his medical skills at various low-income clinics and laboratories.

From all outside appearances both Stephen and Janelle had successful careers and were healthy and energetic about doing the right thing. What was not obvious was the underlying health issues they both had fought for years, and then what would suddenly happen to end their careers and leave them both unable or near unable to continue to push forward.

Janelle

For Janelle this process started fairly early in her career. shortly after starting her career as a Certified Veterinary Technician she was working on giving a medication to a horse when suddenly the horse had a unexpected reaction, the horse panicked. Janelle’s arm got caught in the reins and she ended up being drug a few hundred feet by the horse. This caused significant damage to her spine and shoulder. Over the years she underwent constant medical treatment to manage her pain levels and keep her able to work. After more than a decade she started losing her fight with her pain. Working as a Vet Tech is extremely physically demanding and with her injuries her time in that career was going to come to an end eventually.

In 2019 Janelle was working for an Animal Emergency Room. During an understaffed shift she was trying to lift a dog in critical condition out of a client’s car. While lifting the dog the gurney started to move and so she twisted. This caused severe damage to the already ruptured discs in her back causing constant migraines, pain, and putting her out of work. To make matters worse she had been having some unexplained symptoms before this in her skin and energy levels. After the injury she became borderline narcoleptic, couldn’t eat, and wounds wont heal among other symptoms. Doctors are still trying to find out what exactly is happening even after extensive testing.

Stephen

For Stephen things were a bit more mysterious and sudden. In 2017 he started having severe chronic migraines and fatigue. It was initially believed to be the result of a some back and shoulder pain due to a tendon injury in 2015. He started physical therapy with the hope that it would be a temporary situation. However, that was nowhere near the case.

Over the next year and a half his symptoms progressively got worse, as this kept progressing he started needing to alter his career path to attempt to accommodate his new ability and energy levels. This eventually led him to being an Emergency Medical Dispatcher. Working a nonphysical desk job was thought to be the solution. When he had a severe reaction to treatment for a simple sinus infection everything, very suddenly, changed. He felt like he was on fire, his skin was cracking and extremely red, he couldn’t think, couldn’t remember anything, something was very wrong. He rushed over to the employee clinic and they stopped his medication, gave him a very large dose of steroids, and sent him home. That weekend he started having fainting episodes and was having lapses of time and memory. This was the start of a very long and very expensive time to find a diagnosis.

The doctor kept him out of work due to the extreme mental and safety issues and in that first week he ended up in the Emergency Room. With a $3000 deductible that immediately put their family largely in the hole. On top of that since he worked as a Dispatcher attention and memory was extremely important, any mistake could end up in loss of life.

After 4 months, a MRI, MRA, CT, Holter, 4 specialists, and numerous blood tests his doctor finally ordered a Tilt Table Test. The results of that Tilt Table Test showed Dysautonomia, otherwise knows as Postural Orthostatic Tachycardia Syndrome. It’s a neurological condition that’s primary problem is that upon position changes the wrong signals are sent to your connective tissue and heart and gravity ends up winning against the blood in your body. Your brain gets starved of blood and oxygen and you black out and end up falling. This can cause severe injury if it hits at the wrong time. On a regular basis the blood in your body will not move around properly causing severe fatigue along with a host of other symptoms as well. On further diagnostics it was found that he also has a condition known as Ehlers-Danlos. This condition is related to the connective tissue that holds your entire body together. The connective tissue doesn’t have the correct elasticity and doesn’t hold joints together properly and causes severe chronic pain. He also has ADHD which was severely worsened by the extremely large dose of steroids due to the severe unrelenting anxiety that is now a constant in his life.

Stephen and Janelle have been constantly seeking medical treatment to try to treat their symptoms, they see on average 3-4 providers a week. With Stephen not able to work and with Janelle’s previous injury causing a denial in workman’s compensation, finances have been well under their monthly expenses. They have sold everything they have on hand down to the bare essentials, they had to end up finding a new place to live that was cheaper, they have been freelancing with any skills they have, are using every monetary resource they have, and have used every cent they had saved up and on their credit cards

Due to all of this hardship they are now in $30,000 of medical debt. Their monthly income barely covers their rent and can’t even cover utilities, food, gas, or health insurance. They are currently applying to every program they can find but the income they have managed to get puts them just above being able to get assistance from social programs. In less than a month there is a good chance they are not going to be able to even afford rent.

Please donate to these people who have given everything they could of themselves, and now need the help in return.

Anonymous

5 years ago

– Offline donation

$600

Anonymous

5 years ago

– Offline donation

$100

Anonymous

5 years ago

– Offline donation

$200

Anonymous

5 years ago

– Offline donation

$1000

Anonymous

5 years ago

$10

Anonymous

5 years ago

$50

Anonymous

5 years ago

$25

Ryan Moore

5 years ago

$50

Chris and Suzi White

5 years ago

$150

Staci Daniel

5 years ago

$25

Anonymous

5 years ago

$25

Nora Matteo

5 years ago

$100

Anonymous Anonymous

5 years ago

$10

Richard Morrison

5 years ago

$250

Anonymous

5 years ago

$25

Karen Massaro

5 years ago

$10

Judah Pineda

5 years ago

$50

Anonymous

5 years ago

$25

Stephen Newton

Thank you so much everyone that has contributed to our campaign, we have been overwhelmed by the outpouring of love and support. To update everyone we are starting to make a little bit of a dent in our debt, with the money we have gotten we have paid our utility bills for the next 2 months and we have been able to get groceries and much needed supplies so that way we can do laundry, dishes, etc We had a bit of a bump in the road, or a bump in the head more accurately. I had a fall related to my condition and I ended up with a concussion. I went to the ER and fortunately I had no brain bleeding or skull fractures but I will be somewhat mentally impaired for a unknown amount of time. This has put yet another stress on us but fortunately our insurance will cover this visit fairly well. We appreciate your continued support on getting us through this incredibly hard time in our lives.

5 years ago

Stephen Newton

I can’t express how thankful I am for everyone that has been sharing and donating so far. We are still just scratching the surface but every single penny is going to help us be able to even make our rent payment this month. Here is a bit of an update on our attempts to keep going. With my career most likely entirely over it has been made fairly clear I need to redirect and find something new that will be more able to accommodate my limitations. I started classes today for an Associates in Business Management through a benefit that allows me to take online classes for free. There is a discounted bachelors option as well that I will be looking at as the time moves forward. While we don’t have to pay for the education we still of course have all of our other expenses. So we have been finding side work that we can do close to home. Janelle started up two businesses to use her skills and knowledge base to get us some income on the side, she is also still teaching and tutoring for a local community college but as we all know teachers don’t get paid exceptionally well at all. I am working on finding crafts or services I can provide from home that I can do between my classes to bring in more income. For Janelle’s health conditions we are still a bit in the dark. Healthcare services in the Front Range are hard to get to do anything with any sort of speed or urgency. There is a decent possibility she might have Cushings but we aren’t certain. What we do know is that she can barely walk lately due to the ruptured discs in her back and that her extremities get so cold that she doesn’t know where her feet are and she has had multiple falls down the stairs. On my side we are trying out some cardiac medications to see if we can get my body to send the right signals to the right places. So far I have not had a decrease in falls, however I have been having a little less of a hard time coming out of the extreme brain fog of mental blood and oxygen deprivation. I have also been having a few less episodes of extreme palpitations and shortness of breath. Hopefully between these medications and some new specialists that will work with my Ehlers-Danlos pain we can start moving in the right direction. Again, thank you everyone for sharing the campaign and for donating. Please keep sharing and letting people know, we desperately need the help.

5 years ago

Judah Pineda

Best of luck, to both of you.

5 years ago

Stephen Newton

@Judah Pineda thank you so much!

5 years ago

Stephen Newton

Janelle Newton

Pawsitive Pet Care