Dear readers and writers,

Our family has come to a financial crisis. On July 19, Stephen Stone—president and editor of RenewAmerica.com—was rushed to the hospital due to excruciating pains in his stomach. He had been throwing up frequently and had lost about 40 lbs. in four months. Through an endoscopy, it was found that he had an ulcer and blockage in his duodenum, a digestive organ that connects his stomach to his small intestine.

In mid-July, Stephen was in the hospital for four days with tubes in his nose—intended to drain his stomach and to feed his intestines. When it seemed he was on the mend, he was released from the hospital on July 23, but he still had a feeding tube in his nose since he wasn’t supposed to eat or drink anything by mouth for three weeks, except for fruit-based popsicles (and he snuck in a few Altoids). His wife DeeAnn filled the bags hooked to the feeding tube with nutritional “formula” (from a home health supplier), as well as water, and maintained the pump for him, often getting only a few hours of sleep before she had to get up and refill the feeding bags. This was a 24/7 job.

On Wednesday, August 19, 2026, Steve went in for another endoscopy, where it was found that his ulcer had completely healed, although his duodenum was still partially blocked. The doctor slightly stretched the opening using a dilation device to 12 mm, but said Steve would need to come back in two weeks to have another endoscopy done to see how much he’d improved. If it was still blocked, he would need to have the duodenum stretched again, or have a stent put in, or in the worst case, have surgery. He was put on a strictly liquid diet.

Compounding his problem is the fact that he has an abdominal hernia that needs to be operated on, and which lately has become chronically painful.

With Steve’s ambulance and hospitalization costs, the medical bills are piling up, which will go higher after he receives more treatment. So, for this reason, we are turning to our readers and writers for help. If you could send Steve a gift of whatever amount you can, this would greatly help us pay down these expenses.

If you could send something to Steve’s PayPal account using his email address (editor@renewamerica.com), that would especially help.

If you’d rather send a check, you could send it to:

Stephen Stone
PO Box 50502
Provo, UT 84605-0502

Please let us know if you send a check—by emailing Stephen using the above email address.

UPDATE

After Stephen had the endoscopy on August 19, he was progressing fine, his stomach had no pain, he had gained five pounds, and he was even able to drive a car for short distances.

Then, he went in for a follow-up endoscopy on September 8 to have the duodenum stretched to 15mm (the duodenum is supposed to normally be 20mm). After the procedure, the doctor said Steve should come back in four weeks to see how the duodenum was healing, and put him on a “low residue” diet.

Unlike the previous endoscopies when Steve had no side effects, after the September 8 endoscopy Steve was in pain for 2-3 days from the procedure, had a fever, and brain fog. He lost his appetite, which caused him to lose more weight and become weak and malnourished, and he spoke only in a whisper.

The doctor’s office called him on September 17 to schedule his next endoscopy, but because of his weakened condition, we needed to reschedule it. A few days after that, he began throwing up, which worsened to the point he started throwing up blood.

Seeing the urgency of his condition, on Sunday, September 20, we took him to the ER once again, where they pumped his stomach and put him on IVs to restore the nutrients he had lost so he could regain his strength. He underwent his fifth endoscopy when another feeding tube was installed, which ended up being kinked so none of the formula they were giving him for nutrition was passing through. He had to undergo another procedure the next day to straighten out the tube. After that, things worked fine and he was released from the hospital on Thursday, September 24.

The doctor said that if the duodenum wasn’t healed in 2-4 weeks from his discharge date, a robotic-assisted laparoscopy surgery would need to be used to repair the duodenum. Originally, they were going to put a stent in, but the doctor said their stents were too large for what Steve needed, so surgery was the only answer.

As of September 27, DeeAnn is helping Steve once again with his feeding through a pump and tube. He is regaining his strength and is able to walk around on his own. Hopefully, if the duodenum heals this time, he won’t need surgery. Time will tell.

A LITTLE BACKGROUND

For several years, Stephen Stone has been dealing with stress and health issues that have affected his stomach. Over time, these issues have been getting increasingly worse, which resulted in his duodenum rupturing in 2011, a situation that required emergency surgery—which not only resulted in having his duodenum repaired, but also resulted in the removal of his gall bladder and appendix.

After recovering from that crisis, he was doing fine for a few years, but then in 2022, the symptoms started recurring and he sought help at an InstaCare facility. They prescribed Omeprazole and sent him on his way. But then on October 13, 2023, he began throwing up and had terrible pain in his stomach. So he was taken to the local hospital’s ER to see what was wrong. They did two CT scans and found inflammation in the duodenal loop that suggested a peptic ulcer or doudenitis—more of the same problem as before that wasn’t really addressed. They suggested he stay on Ompeprazole, which he did for several months.

For quite some time, Steve coped with discomfort and pain in his right side. Then starting in 2025 when we were appealing our property taxes, the stress of doing so caused his symptoms to flare up, causing him more pain.

In late January, as Steve was in the shower, he became weak, dizzy, and fell, causing him to land on his face, scraping his back on the shower drain as he tried to get up. He tried for an hour to get out of the shower, since no one in the house knew what had happened to him. His face became swollen and he had bruising on his arms and back. This was the beginning of his recent decline.

By May 2026, the pain in Steve’s right side increased, and he began throwing up. In fact, on Mother’s Day, he almost threw up at church, but was able to hold it until he got home. From then on, he became too weak to attend church regularly again. By July, he had lost 30-40 lbs and became very thin—almost emaciated. By July 19, 2026, Steve was in so much pain and weak that he was taken again to the local hospital’s ER, as was explained above.

Again, please send Stephen a gift of any size for his medical expenses to:

• Steve’s PayPal account using his email address (editor@renewamerica.com), that would especially help.

• If you’d rather send a check, you could send it to:
  Stephen Stone
  PO Box 50502
  Provo, UT 84605-0502