Lori has always had a giving heart one you could count on. But the time has come for Lori to count on someone else. That is where I hope I can count on the people of our community to help. But first you need to hear Lori's story.
In August of 1998 Lori's Husband Rodney was killed in a vehicle rollover, leaving Lori a widow at 26 years old with two small daughters to raise on her own. Knowing that she needed to have a job that could support her family, she went to school majoring in accounting. She accomplished this and was able to provide for her family. A few years later she met and fell in love with her husband now, Jim Gabbitas. Jim had some medical problems throughout his life as well, and we'll go into those later. But first Lori's story.
In May of 2006, Lori was diagnosed with type 2 diabetes. For awhile she was unable to work until she could get her blood sugar to a healthy level with the insulin she now takes. This wasn't an easy task and she was unable to work for some time. This also made life very difficult on them financially. Then In August 2009, she had a mole on the back of her calf biopsied. On the 29th of August, she was told she had melanoma. She was sent to a specialist at IMED in Murray. On September 4th, she had surgery to remove the melanoma on her calf and also to take out sentinel lymph nodes in her groin area. They got wide enough margins on the calf that was all clear, but the lymph node came back with cancer cells. She then got a lot of fluids building up in her leg that she had to place a q-tip inside the incision to drain out the fluids. This then led to infection and a lot of sickness. So after she healed from that, she went back into surgery for a total lymph node dissection on the right groin on October 16, 2009. This time a drain was placed to help with the drainage, but in November it was accidentally pulled out. So it was back to placing the q-tip through the incision to drain it, leading to infection again. On November 18th, Lori had a small surgery in the Doctors office, that left an open wound in her leg that had to heal from the inside out. Then on November 30th, she started chemotherapy. She had it five days a week through the month of December. It went pretty well. The side effects were flu like symptoms. Fever, sweats, cold chills, nausea and body aches ans side effects were not so bad at first, but by the end of the month they progressed making it even a chore to take a shower. On January 2nd she was admitted into the hospital because she had fluid around her lungs. This was a rare side effect from the chemotherapy. She also ended up with lymph edema in her right leg. Lymph edema is when the lymph fluids do not drain correctly causing the leg to swell. Her leg was swollen from the thigh down into her foot. She couldn't even put on a shoe. She went to the lymph edema clinic and learned massages and exercises to help with the lymph drainage. She will now have to wear compression stockings in the day and wrap with compression bandages every night. She will have to continue with this for the rest of her life.
So as you can see, Lori's story is one of a true test in life. One of a very challenging hardship put on a family. But this has not been the only adversity they have had to face. Here is the rest of the story:
As we said earlier, Lori's husband Jim, came into their marriage with some health problem of his own. That since, have escalated throughout the years. Before Lori and Jim were married in 1994, Jim had a grand mal seizure that led to finding out that he had a benign brain tumor. They believed that was the cause of the seizures and he was operated on to have it removed. Jim continued to take several medications to prevent seizures. In July of 2002, we found out that Jim had diabetes. Type 1 – which is strange because he is an adult, but the Doctors figured a virus must have attacked his pancreas. On April 2nd 2007, Jim had a TIA Stroke. They ran all sorts of tests on him and found out he has Factor V Leiden, which is basically thick blood. They put him on Coumadin which he will have to take for the rest of his life. They believed this must have been the cause of the stroke. Then on July 25, 2009 he had a second TIA. At the end of October, Jim found a mole that looked suspicious. He went to the doctor and found out he too had melanoma. It was on his left temporal area (if you look close at his picture you can see the mole). Jim went in for surgery on November 6th. Luckily it had not spread and was just in that area. I know to read this you would think Jim and Lori just can't out do each other. But sometimes life works in crazy ways.
Jim started going to a new neurologist on May 10th of this year. The Doctor put him on a new seizure medication. Then on May 18th, he was taken from work by ambulance to UVRMC with more stroke like symptoms. The seizures passed and he went home the same day. This happened again at work on May 26th. This time they admitted him and ran all sorts of test, but could not find anything wrong. His work would not let him return until the doctors would give him a medical release. So again financially they were put to the test. The doctors said they wanted him to be event free for 45 to 90 days before they would release him. He then had another one of those events on May 28th, then again on June 4th and another on June 7th. On June 7th, they took him back to the ER because this event lasted for a couple of hours. Again they couldn't find anything wrong. This time they admitted him into ICU and wanted to have a 24 hour observation on him to see if he took any seizures on their watch. He had several. So they took him off the new seizure medication that he had started on May 10th. So far, things have went well without Jim having any seizures, but the Doctors are not sure if or when he will have the problem again. By this time all of their savings has been drained. But the bills are still coming. Everything they have worked so hard to have could be lost. And they still don't know what the future has in store.
So this is where you, my dear friends, come in. I need all of your help. Asking for help is not an easy thing for me to do, but since I'm not a millionaire, I have humbled myself to ask. I also need to say that when I mentioned what I had in mind to Lori, she said no, people will think I'm a failure. Lori you're no failure. You're trials have been many and you have endured. You need to realize that not only you will be blessed for this. It's also an opportunity for other people to be blessed for reaching out to help another.
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