As many of you know, my mom had a massive stroke on June 25th leaving significant damage to the left side of her brain. Two days after the stroke, on June 27th, her brain was swelling so rapidly that she had to have an emergency craniectomy for fear the swelling would reach down to her spinal chord being fatal. The neurosurgeon said as soon as the left side of her skull was removed, her brain swelled out like a balloon thus confirming it was a life saving surgery. To give her brain time to finish swelling and to retract to normal size, the left half of her skull is being frozen and will be reattached in 6-12 weeks.
A week later, she was showing signs of progress and had started moving her left arm, left leg and occasionally opening her eyes. Then, on July 5th, she had another stroke this time affecting the right side of her brain. The second stroke was not a severe as the first, but now she has damage to both sides of her brain.
For the past 4 weeks she has been in ICU and is still incapacitated. Because of this, she had a tracheotomy and feeding tube put in last week as she is unable to fully breathe on her own, cannot swallow and does not have use of her extremities.
A few days ago, my mom was moved from ICU to a Long Term Acute Care facility. She will be here at least 30 days; then when she is able to breathe on her own, without the ventilator, she will go to a Long Term Acute Rehab facility for physical, occupational and speech therapy. As you can see, we have a very long road ahead.
The neurologist said it takes about a year to know how much movement and speech control a stroke victim is able to regain.
My mom was a very healthy 63 year old, fully independent, non-smoker, non-drinker, and the absolute last person we would ever worry about having a health emergency. Prior to June 25th, she and my step-dad (they have been together for 20 years) both worked full time. They have now exhausted all of their vacation/sick/PTO days. My siblings and I are trying to maintain their household bills, however this is not something we had budgeted for and is completely unexpected; so we need your help.
We are asking for your help to cover their mortgage, household bills, health insurance premiums and insurmountable medical bills that are continuously coming in.
We sincerely appreciate all of the love, prayers and support!