Needing Help to Fix Jeremiah’s Back Issues
UPDATE (5/7/20): As you can see, we not only met, but exceeded our required goal. In faith, this past Monday, I went ahead and booked Jeremiah’s surgery for this Friday (5/8/20), believing YHWH would make a way where there didn’t seem to be one. He did and He did it through the generosity of many people. To those who contributed, we in the Skiba family – and especially myself on Jeremiah’s behalf – are extremely grateful for your gracious support. This wouldn’t have been possible without your help. So, thank you, thank you, thank you. The extra amount we raised over and above our initial goal for the surgery will be going toward Jeremiah’s follow up costs and therapeutic rehab in the weeks ahead. Now, please join us in prayer that this procedure will go well and that he has a quick, complication free road to recovery – hopefully leading to a brighter future filled with much less pain.
OK. So, let me start off by saying, this is not my favorite thing to do. I really don’t like asking for money, but we’ve found ourselves in a situation where I need to.
In 2007, I not only married Sheila, but I also took in her then 13 year old son Jeremiah as my own. Thus, we became a family.
For a while, it really looked like our son might have a promising career in baseball. He was quite good as a pitcher, but sadly a series of injuries caused him to have to quit that dream.
Then about 5 years ago, he re-injured his back and has been in pain ever since. Unfortunately, our insurance isn’t that great, but we’ve been to a number of doctors trying to find him a solution to take away his pain. Most either just wanted to give him a shot, put him on painkillers or perform surgeries that are not guaranteed to work, and worse, are likely to cause more problems for him later in life.
He’s only 26 years old and has been taking CBD and Kratom, which does help him “deal with the pain” but it doesn’t address the root cause of it. And yes, we’ve been to plenty of chiropractors. We’ve done the traction machines. We’ve used Bemer technology. We even have an inversion table at home. Trust me, we’ve looked into just about every “natural” and “alternative” solution you may want to share with us over the past 5 years. But none of that has been working for him. So, needless to say, we’ve been feeling pretty hopeless. But then we heard about a non-invasive, NON-fetal tissue, adult stem cell therapy (injected directly into the discs) that shows promise. Today (May 1, 2020), we met with one of the leading doctors in this particular field of medicine and for the first time in years, we feel hopeful that this could really help Jeremiah.
Insurance won’t cover it, so I need help in order to help him. The procedure was quoted at $13,095. The following picture is from a recent scan of his back:
CLICK HERE to read the accompanying doctor’s report that was given with this scan. As you can see, the upper discs look healthy and full, but the discs inside the red circle are compressed, have tears, showing signs of degenerative disc disease and other issues, causing them to no longer function properly. This, along with additional related problems in the surrounding tissue are causing quite a lot of pressure on the adjacent nerves.
On a scale of 1 to 10 (10 being excruciating pain), Jeremiah says he’s at about at least an 8.5 most days. Obviously, we want to do whatever we can to try and alleviate that pain and help him get back to as close to normal as possible.
Of all the solutions we’ve looked into, this one has the most promising outlook. Below is the quote we received from the doctor:
We’d really like to get him scheduled within the next week or so. Therefore, would you please prayerfully consider making a contribution toward this goal?
If you’d like to use Zelle® to make a bank-to-bank transfer of funds, you can do so by sending to RobSkiba2@aol.com and if they request a phone number, you can use 413-218-4754. If you’d prefer to mail a check or money order, you can send to:
Rob and Sheila Skiba
PO Box 118461
Carrollton, TX 75011
If you’d like to use PayPal or credit/debit card, please use the form below. Any help you could give would be greatly appreciated.
Sincerely,
– Rob and Sheila Skiba