"Firefighter's Family in Need!" - Nomination for the While Family for the ABC Extreme Home Makeover

My friend rewrote the petition:

My name is Adrienne and I would like to nominate Marc While and his family from Eastanollee, GA for the ABC Extreme Home Makeover Show. The While family are good friends of mine and I have known the While family for about 10 years.

I first met Marc when we worked together and he told me that he was going to move his wife & kids from California to Georgia to make a better life for them. Marc joined the Eastanollee Fire Department in 1996 and has been serving our community for at least 10 years, of which 4 years he has been Assistant Chief. He has also been a Medical First Responder for at least 4 years.

Their daughter Alix, has had medical problems all her life. She has a compromised immune system from complications due to asthma and an IgA deficiency, she has been in and out of the hospital most of her life. From 1999 - 2003, they have estimated that she had been hospitalized around 54 times and then some. Alix had a hard time attending public school because of the exposure to sick children and multiple germs. They are homeschooling her now.

Marc’s fast acting, training, and skills became a lifesaver for his wife, Autumn. On March 4, 2004, at the age of 30, she became unconscious when she suffered a brain hemorrhage, without any warning signs or symptoms. Marc found her on the bed barely breathing, and as he called 911 for help, she stopped breathing on him twice and he had to help her breath. They knew the EMS guys that transported her to the local hospital. One of them said that they wouldn’t have gave 2 cents for her when they picked her up. She was life-flighted from the local hospital to St. Mary’s Hospital where they took her into surgery and inserted a tube in her brain to release the blood and pressure in her brain.

The Dr. said “5 more seconds of bleeding and she wouldn’t have made it”. She also said that “she was as close to dead as she’s seen without being dead”, and that “it was the fastest bleeding kind of brain hemorrhage, and it was extremely rare for someone to survive something like this”. The main ICU nurse that took care of her said that she was “One in thousands of thousands”.

She experienced painful muscle spasms after the drainage tube in her head was removed because of the spinal fluid as it began to regulate itself, the pressure inside her body became so intense. After she left the hospital she still had the intense back pain and spasms. Due to the hemorrhage, she is now having problems with paying attention, concentrating. She is slow, inefficient, impulsive, forgetful, & confused most of the time. Her processing speed has been affected so she processes things at a much slower rate, which makes it hard for her to communicate certain things to people.

Eight months later Autumn was still in extreme back pain & having spasms which affected all parts of her daily life. Her Dr. ordered an MRI and found an AVM(arteriovenous malformation) in her spine. That was the cause of the brain hemorrhage, and it’s believed to be congenital (present at birth), caused by mistakes that occur during embryonic or fetal development. On November 16, 2004, she under went an 8 hour major back operation at Emory University Hospital, to remove the mass of tangled blood vessels which had multiple aneurysm’s in it that were wrapped in her spinal cord.

It took her a long time to heal due to some complications. She now has a big scar on her back, with a lot of scar tissue that has made it painful for her to do the simple things that most people take for granted like walking, sitting, driving, bending, going up & down stairs etc. It has affected all parts of her life. She has been depressed since the brain hemorrhage because she can’t do things with her family that she use to. She is in constant pain. She is now disabled and not able to work. And not to mention all the stress from the medical bills that were over $100,000.

Marc has had to work a full time job plus work odd jobs to try to make ends meet, which takes all of the family time away. They have been struggling to keep their trailer. Ever since 2004 they have been behind in all their bills.

When they moved to Toccoa, they bought a single wide trailer and rented a lot to set in on. Marc has always talked about his dreams of building a house. But it wasn’t long before their dreams were shattered because of the compiling medical bills from their daughter’s illness and Autumn’s situation from 2004. They desperately need an adequate house that would be helpful and safe for both Autumn and Alix.

* Life is not Measured by the Breaths we Take
but by the Moments that Take our Breath Away*