A local electrician and Milton High School grad, Josh Sylvester, needs community support. Sylvester, and his fiancée, Darla Harris, said a fluke side effect to a medicine administered after a motorcycle accident two years ago led stomach ulcers and liver failure. Now he is in end-stage liver failure and needs a transplant.
“Sometimes I’m out of it. I may not remember this conversation tomorrow,” Sylvester said, Thursday. Harris said after the 2012 wreck, where the two on Sylvester’s bike ended up in a wash at Indian Ford Road, Sylvester thought he could walk off his injuries. Harris said she was unscathed. She said Sylvester maintained for a year before going to the hospital. Sylvester said his legs were swollen and couldn’t move after going on the generally benign naproxen.
Harris said Sylvester was at Sacred Heart for a month. She said he was pooling blood but thickening it would have caused other problems. His blood had also become toxic. Red spots on his chest show where his blood has burst the smaller veins. Sylvester said one day he couldn’t speak for five hours. The hospital as set him up at home, he said, with everything handicap accessible now.
“I’m not sitting with my hand out,” Sylvester said. However, the couple is strapped. Sylvester can’t work and Harris had to quit one of her two jobs to be home more for her fiancée. Sylvester said the mortgage company is even trying to kick them out of their home after exhausting all options to delay or lessen bills. Sylvester said an antibiotic the doctor prescribed costs $1,600 a month, but his insurance dropped him since going on hospice care. However, neither Harris nor Sylvester sought any kind of donations.
The next step is a consultation, Harris said, determining how good a candidate Sylvester is for a new liver. Though it sounds cruel, Harris said, the hospital has to make sure a liver won’t go to waste. Sylvester said he has no other failing organs right now, a typical side effect of liver failure and a reason they’re optimistic about his chances of getting a liver. The support so far from the community, Harris said, has also placed Sylvester in better standing for the list. She said they should be able to set up the appointment for the consultation at UF Health Shands Hospital within a couple weeks.
As to their nuptials, Harris said she and Sylvester aren’t setting a date until Sylvester is on the mend. They just got engaged only a month ago.
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This article originally appeared on Santa Rosa Press Gazette: 2012 accident leads to liver failure