As some of you know David has been having some health issues the past few months. Starting back in February with a car accident that unknowingly caused traumatic injury to David’s chest wall. He started having pain and a cough about 3 weeks after the accident so we took him to the ER, they did a CT of his chest and found that he had a Plural effusion, and pericardial effusion (fluid build up in his heart and lungs). He was admitted the beginning of March, at that time they did a ton of tests, ended up pulling 220 cc’s of fluid off the left lung and treated him with heavy around the clock iv antibiotics. He was sent home after a week in the hospital with more oral antibiotics and returned to work. After a week off of the antibiotics, the cough returned so we made a follow up with his cardiologist and his PCP where both said things looked/sounded good. Then a week after being told everything looked good he’s on his way home from work and called to say he’s feeling worse than before so I met him at the ER. They did an xray and saw that he not only had plural effusion again but also a partially collapsed lung. He was then transferred back to Texas Regional Health in Dallas where they pulled 450cc’s of fluid and ended up having to do surgery on the left lung to scrape and clean it all out. He was released on Sunday after the drain tubes were removed. He’s filed for short term disability but it doesn’t cover much at all. His wife is on disability herself so money will be tight for them during his recovery. Anything given will go towards bills and groceries and gas to his follow up appointments until he’s released to go back to work which is estimated to be 6-8 weeks.

Thank you

The Ballew family

04-28 update

We went to do a follow up with his PCP yesterday, his WBC is rising again and his iron is super low which is possibly causing the anemia. We have to go in for another Xray and CT today please pray is doesn’t show more fluid build up in the lung! We can’t physically, emotionally or financially afford another hospital stay.