Zion Benton Graduate Needs Help Recovering From Sepsis
My sister, Brittany Wynn is 31 years old. She was born in Waukegan, IL at Victory Hospital (Vista) and graduated from Zion Benton Township High School in 2009. About a year ago, Brittany moved to Merida, Mexico in the Yucatan for work. On her 31st birthday on September 29th, Brittany fell and hurt her back. She was stuck laying on the floor of her apartment and was unable to get up to even use the bathroom or clean herself up. Our family was able to find a home health nurse that stayed with her for 8 hours a day, but she was not improving. The healthcare system in Mexico is much different than in the states, and she was unable to afford to be admitted. Her plan was to improve enough to return to the states once she could move to seek treatment. My parents were in the process of obtaining the necessary documents for emergency passports when things went from bad to worse. On Monday, November 1st, Brittany called my mom in extreme pain. Her entire body was shutting down. My mom convinced her to get an ambulance to the hospital. Brittany had multiple tears in her colon and her body was in septic shock, causing her organs to fail. She went into emergency surgery that night to repair the tears in her colon and started treatment for the infection that led to sepsis. Tuesday morning the doctor gave her a 50% chance of survival and placed her on life support. Luckily, she was able to be removed from life support a few days later and breath on her own. She still needs additional surgeries to reattach her colon and her liver and kidneys are not fully functioning over a week later. There have been setbacks as well where her stomach filled with liquid and had to be pumped then she went into heart failure. Right now, she is semi-stable in comparison to where she was a week ago, but her organs and the infection are still a very serious threat. Our family has done what we can to pay her medical bills in Mexico to keep her there, but we have gotten to the point where we have exhausted most of our options. She is too unstable to travel to return to the states where we can get her covered and treated without the fear that she can be kicked out of the hospital for non-payment. Mexico requires payment upfront, and we have paid upwards of $10,000 but that is a fraction of the total. We have tried the embassy in her area, and they will not provide any help or even give us a loan for a medevac to bring her home. The medevac will cost $33,000.
We are hoping people can share her GoFundMe page and offer support and prayers for our sister during this time. Every little bit helps get our sister home safely.
https://gofund.me/66189f3c