Hi, my name is Julia, I am Kelly’s daughter. Many of you may already know my mother and her situation, but for those of you who do not, I would like to tell her story..

For starters, my mom is the back bone of our family, such a selfless woman, always taking care of others before herself. She worked for Mitch Essert State Farm for about 20 years and is well liked in the community for her courteous goodwill.

In 2019, she was diagnosed with Sarcoidosis, a rare inflammatory disease in which the immune system overreacts and it affects multiple organs in the body. Throughout the years, she has experienced many complications with her lungs, lymph nodes, skin, eyes, etc. It is very unpredictable, there are lots of flare-ups and remissions.

In 2023, a series of unfortunate events happened; my grandfather fell very ill and ended up passing away in May. To say the very least, this posed a great deal of stress on my mom.

At the beginning of July, severe thunderstorms hit the town in which my parents reside. Quite a bit of damage was done to their house and they were without power for over a week. More stress ensued. Within that same week, we noticed some strange behavior in my mom. Her best friend ended up taking her to the hospital, they ran some tests and found that she had multiple TIAs (mini strokes). She was cleared to go home after a week in the hospital. 2 months later, in September, my mom’s Aunt Dahlia passed away and on the day of her funeral, she was back in the hospital due to having more strokes. That set of strokes left her immobilized, she has difficulty speaking and her short-term memory is poor. For about a month and an half after that, she was in and out of rehab facilities and the hospital. Thankfully, she has been at a wonderful assisted living facility since the end of October. My dad was taught, by the OTs and PTs, how to get my mom in and out of a bed and a chair, on and off the toilet and in and out of a vehicle. She was even able to get a day pass to go home and spend time with family for Thanksgiving. Soon after, at the beginning of December, she had more strokes.

After each series of these strokes, it has set my mom back in her journey to recovery. My mom has had around 15 strokes total. Throughout all of this, she has been fighting hard and doing her very best with physical therapy, occupational therapy and speech therapy.

My mom filed for disability back in July and it still has not been approved.

My dad, Mark, has been living on his salary alone and he plans on retiring later this year. We are unsure of how long the insurance company will cover the expenses of keeping her at the assisted living facility so that she can get the care that she needs to make a full recovery, it really all depends on my mom’s progress. He has already received a hefty bill from the assisted living facility due to the fact that the insurance company only covers a certain percentage. That being said, we are very uncertain of what the future holds, especially financially. All funds donated will go to my dad in order to pay for medical bills and expenses.

If you made it this far, thank you for taking the time out of your day to read about my mother’s story. I hope that you can find it in your heart to donate and/or even share this post. We would greatly appreciate any help that we can get ❤️