Jess & Stephanie

About Jess & Stephanie:

As many know, Jess had a “small” incident with her heart in the beginning of December. The ER doctor called the event an NSTEMI heart attack, but it has since been called an ischemic heart related incident (where her heart wasn’t getting enough oxygen while she was on stage performing).

In 2017, she had an ablation for arrhythmias that weren’t manageable with medication.  That seemed to be working just fine until November 5 when she was on her way home from a gig and went back into bigeminy which sent her to the ER.  Two weeks later, she was back in the ER for high BP, more arrhythmias and a lot of anxiety.  Then Dec 2nd happened.  Since then, she’s had an echo and a heart cath done to see if her arteries were blocked.  She’s happy to report she doesn’t have any blocked arteries.  However, she does have an electrical issue in her left ventricle which will require visits to Brigham & Women’s Hospital in Boston as her Doctor doesn’t perform this specific type of ablation.  In total, since Nov 5th, she’s made seven trips to the ER.

As a result, she’s been reluctant to perform until later in the year when she feels better and has a better handle on her health which leads us to the 2nd part of this appeal.

In October, Steph lost her workmen’s comp.  She has been planning early retirement from Springfield Public Schools after being injured - once for dislocating her shoulder while teaching (surgery no 1), once for being knocked unconscious by a students (surgery no 2) and once for having a basketball stand fall on her (undoing the work from both surgeries).  She has been out of work for four years, has submitted all of her paperwork for early retirement and has been given the greenlight by all of her doctors for early retirement.  However, MTRS (Massachusetts Teacher’s Retirement System) hasn’t finalized a date for her board meeting and they’ve lost all of her income.  All of it.

Losing half of Steph’s pay for over a year to losing all of it for the past four months, they are finding it difficult to pay their bills. It is not Jess or Stephanie’s first instinct to ask for help; however, they have exhausted all other options.

Please join them on Friday, Mar 24 for a comedy show with three of their dearest & funniest friends.  You can count on laughs until your stomach hurts & amazing raffles. Plus, a 50/50.

We hope you can make it to the show! And, if you can’t, please consider making a donation on gofundme.