GoFundMe Campaign for Daughter Gabrielle

It’s humbling to ask people to donate money when so many out there need assistance, but my youngest daughter has had a serious medical emergency and really needs some help.

Gabrielle is 24, and a very brave and determined young woman. She packed her bags and moved to Orlando shortly after high school to pursue her dream of being a performer. She’s been working multiple jobs to make ends meet including at Disney World as a character attendant, modeling, working trade shows and events as a hostess/running entertainment games like dealing blackjack for casino themed events, appearing as a “princess” at Orlando area events and charity functions, airbrush tattoos at events, and most recently as a host/DJ for a company that does dance party and entertainment events at the various Disney parks. Most of that is contract work… she is one of the hardest working people I know.

Tuesday June 12th she was working a trade show event when she started experiencing intestinal distress, and was alarmed to find a significant amount of blood in her stool. She was light headed and couldn’t drive so she took an Uber home, and there she had several more sever bouts of the same bloody stools and then passed out on the bathroom floor. She came to and called a friend to come over to help take her to the hospital, but Gabrielle passed out again in the driveway and was still losing blood, and her friend could not get her into the car, so they called an ambulance. She was taken to the nearest hospital’s ER, and eventually ended up in the ICU being treated for significant blood loss (her hemoglobin was only 5 g/dl, normal is 11 to 13) via three blood transfusions and stabilized while they tried to figure out what was happening. The preliminary diagnosis was a bleeding stomach ulcer, but that was just an early guess. At 5 am Wednesday she went into surgery. They did an endoscopy and found not an ulcer but an enlargement of the connecting area between two blood vessels in her upper intestines where they connect to the stomach, a condition called Arteriovenous malformation, which had hemorrhaged and bled into her intestines, causing the bloody stools and massive blood loss. The surgeons stopped the bleeding by cauterization, all done endoscopically. This is a rare condition, and not caused by external things like NSAID use as ulcers are. They said many people that have it live their whole lives without this happening, some experience ruptures and they can happen years apart, or whenever, or never again. Unfortunately the bleeding started again late Wednesday night and she is going to go into surgery again shortly so they can see if they missed a hemorrhage or if the previously cauterized repair ruptured again.

The scary part was that her hemorrhage is very high up in her GI tract, so it bled for a while before her first symptoms surfaced. If she had not regained consciousness from that bathroom floor, being home all alone, she would probably have bled out. Someone up there was looking out for her. Anna flew out to Orlando on the earliest flight we could get yesterday, and was by Gabrielle’s side by noon. She’ll be staying down there until Gabrielle is back on her feet.

Here’s the other part: she has no health insurance. Self employed people, especially artists, have a hard time being able to afford even the most basic of coverage. Between ambulance rides, days in ICU, continuing transfusions, multiple tests and surgeries, not to mention all the income she is not going to be able to make for a while, this is going to financially devastate her. Anna and I are in no position to cover all these costs. Gabrielle’s sister Victoria has started a GoFundMe campaign to try and get some help for her. If you can, please donate. Any amount will help. If you are not in a position to help with a donation, then please pick up the phone and find a place to go and donate blood. The donors that gave the blood Gabrielle is receiving literally saved her life. If none of that is possible for you, all positive thoughts and prayers are appreciated.