How to Help

As you probably know, Karen is recovering from a double lung transplant. For a more detailed description of The McGinnis Family and everything they have been through, please see their story on the gofundme site, which is linked on the right of this page. If you would like to help, please see the list below of things that would really help them during this difficult time:

1. Thoughts and Prayers - This is most important to the family and they really appreciate everyone's thoughts and prayers! Please leave a comment on the blog for Karen to read!

2. Food - On this site is a link for the food calendar. There are no allergies and the only food that is not a favorite for all of them (but some of them do like it) is seafood.

3. Other Gift Cards - If cooking is not your thing, they would always be happy to have gift cards. The gas costs are piling up as the kids drive back and forth to the hospital. Grocery store gift cards and gift cards to places like Walmart or Target for household items would also be very much appreciated.

4. Monetary Donations - the GoFundMe site is also linked on the side of this page. They have recently found out that insurance isn't covering Karen's last hospital visit, which is costing more than $17,000! Also, they will be eating a lot at the hospital over the next several weeks and that money can add up as well. --If you would like to donate something but can't get it to their house (or mail it), please let me know and I would be happy to pick it up and deliver it to the family! stacey.grote@huschblackwell.com

Please see below for updates on Karen's progress. Go Karen, Go!

Friday, January 23, 2015

Update from Morgan 1/23



I know I had posted an updated on my mom earlier, but deleted it.  Here's an update from my dad:

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Well Karen was doing very very well overnight and this morning so they felt extremely positive about taking the tube out of her mouth and turning off of the ventilator. They never want to take the tube out unless they are 100% sure it's going to stay out. It started out well, but Karen was very anxious about breathing on her own and her numbers started falling. She was struggling to breathe while her blood pressure rose significantly. 

 
 
So they all felt that Karen had to go back on the ventilator to keep her safe. They took a chance that they were very confident with, but it just didn't work. Nonetheless, they will give it some more time. There's a real good chance they might have to perform a tracheostomy. This isn't as bad as it sounds because they'd have the tube out which reduces the chance of infection settling in on her new lungs. Plus it's much easier to suction and she can start physical therapy getting up and moving around which will help strengthen the new lungs. Even though Karen and I were a little disappointed,  some lungs take a little longer to get going 100%. The lungs themselves have been severely traumatized. First they were harvested, moved around before being packed in ice, cut on, manipulated, and probably bruised while being put into Karen.

 

So we were going to have to wait until Monday or Tuesday,  but an OR (Operating Room) team wandered up on the floor and had a little time, so our nurse practitioner told them about Karen. As I finish writing this Karen is getting the tracheostomy right now in her ICU room. That truly is fate. So keep those prayers and positive vibes flowing because they are working. When has anything in the McGinnis household been easy?

My dad meanwhile was downstairs getting a Cardiac Catheter done. Things turned out better than we thought. It turns out he has Aortic Stenosis which we new, but everything else is good. He'll still have to have surgery,  but a new procedure that he can have done will be much easier to do.

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Please keep praying for my beautiful mom!
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