Help the Andriola’s save our Mom & support Brother
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Life and Death Challenges in 2020
One night in December of 2019, after being sick for several weeks, my mom, Patricia, experienced very low blood pressure and was suddenly unable to walk or stand. My dad, Anthony, called 911 and at the hospital the doctors discovered that she had severe liver disease. She spent the next several weeks in the hospital and then a nursing home, as she was unable to walk more than a few steps. It was then that we learned that she would need a liver transplant in order to survive.
Once the medical team understood what was causing her illness, they were able to provide treatment and medications that helped stabilize her and allow her to get through daily activities until she could have a transplant. My family also began researching living donor liver transplant, which is where a person is able to donate a portion, about two-thirds, of their healthy liver to the recipient and the liver regrows in both people.
Meanwhile, in Denver, Colorado, my 36 year-old brother, Dominick, a Marine Corps veteran, had struggled for years with post traumatic stress disorder and traumatic brain injury as a result of his military service. He had moved there to attend a PTSD program at the VA hospital.
In August of 2020, in the early morning hours, he was driving when he suddenly experienced a hypertensive hemorrhagic stroke, which means that his blood pressure rose very high and a blood vessel burst deep inside his brain. He was rushed to the hospital after crashing his car due to the hemorrhage. The neurosurgeons performed emergency surgery to stop the bleeding and relieve the pressure in his brain, saving his life.
At the same time, however, back at my parents' home in Pennsylvania, my dad experienced a fall causing him to break his leg and required surgery to place a rod and pins to repair the break. Because the VA was unable to reach my parents while they were at the hospital, it was not until a day later that we learned the news of Dominick's stroke.
Devastated and scared, my mother made the choice to leave my dad during his surgery and fly to Denver with me, leaving my sister, Amanda, and brother Nick, to help care for my dad. At Dominick's bedside in the ICU for weeks following his surgery, my mother and I watched the doctors and nurses struggle to control his blood pressure and the pressure in his brain, and we prayed for him to wake up, not knowing if he would survive, and if he did what that would even mean. Would he be brain dead?
After months of incredible care from the Denver VA hospital team, he regained consciousness and eventually some use of his right hand and leg, but he remains on a feeding tube and may never regain the ability to speak or walk. He likely will need ongoing, daily care, for the rest of his life. While the VA has provided excellent care, he will soon be moved to a nursing home where his access to the same level of physical, occupational, and speech therapy will be limited to "maintenance" level therapy. This means that they will not be pushing him to regain abilities or skills. We have seen how far he has come, and he is too young, at only 37, to condemn to a bedridden life.
We want to provide additional therapy for him to improve his quality of life to the best it can be, but out-of-pocket physical, occupational, and speech therapy can range from $100 - $375 per session, costing between $5,000 and $20,000 for one year of just one session of therapy per week.
While Dominick has made slow gains, my mother's health has continued to deteriorate. As a blood type match and in overall good health, I volunteered to be her living donor, and after many months of testing, the surgery will hopefully take place this summer. The estimated cost of the surgery and recovery, barring any complications, is $625,000, of which my parents' Medicare and Medicare Part G will only cover 80%, leaving them with at least $125,000 to pay, plus the cost of anti-rejection medications, which will cost approximately $2,000 - $3,000 per month, for the rest of her life.
Though these costs are incredibly high and terrifying for my parents, who are retired and living on Social Security and a small pension, the alternative is to watch my mother slowly die. There is no choice for us.
Please donate to help cover some of these overwhelming expenses for my mother and brother's life-saving and ongoing care.
If you are unable to donate, please share in your communities. My parents have always been the first to lend a hand to others, rarely asking for help for themselves, and they do not know that I have started this campaign.
Thank you for sharing, donating, and caring.
Diana Andriola
One night in December of 2019, after being sick for several weeks, my mom, Patricia, experienced very low blood pressure and was suddenly unable to walk or stand. My dad, Anthony, called 911 and at the hospital the doctors discovered that she had severe liver disease. She spent the next several weeks in the hospital and then a nursing home, as she was unable to walk more than a few steps. It was then that we learned that she would need a liver transplant in order to survive.
Once the medical team understood what was causing her illness, they were able to provide treatment and medications that helped stabilize her and allow her to get through daily activities until she could have a transplant. My family also began researching living donor liver transplant, which is where a person is able to donate a portion, about two-thirds, of their healthy liver to the recipient and the liver regrows in both people.
Meanwhile, in Denver, Colorado, my 36 year-old brother, Dominick, a Marine Corps veteran, had struggled for years with post traumatic stress disorder and traumatic brain injury as a result of his military service. He had moved there to attend a PTSD program at the VA hospital.
In August of 2020, in the early morning hours, he was driving when he suddenly experienced a hypertensive hemorrhagic stroke, which means that his blood pressure rose very high and a blood vessel burst deep inside his brain. He was rushed to the hospital after crashing his car due to the hemorrhage. The neurosurgeons performed emergency surgery to stop the bleeding and relieve the pressure in his brain, saving his life.
At the same time, however, back at my parents' home in Pennsylvania, my dad experienced a fall causing him to break his leg and required surgery to place a rod and pins to repair the break. Because the VA was unable to reach my parents while they were at the hospital, it was not until a day later that we learned the news of Dominick's stroke.
Devastated and scared, my mother made the choice to leave my dad during his surgery and fly to Denver with me, leaving my sister, Amanda, and brother Nick, to help care for my dad. At Dominick's bedside in the ICU for weeks following his surgery, my mother and I watched the doctors and nurses struggle to control his blood pressure and the pressure in his brain, and we prayed for him to wake up, not knowing if he would survive, and if he did what that would even mean. Would he be brain dead?
After months of incredible care from the Denver VA hospital team, he regained consciousness and eventually some use of his right hand and leg, but he remains on a feeding tube and may never regain the ability to speak or walk. He likely will need ongoing, daily care, for the rest of his life. While the VA has provided excellent care, he will soon be moved to a nursing home where his access to the same level of physical, occupational, and speech therapy will be limited to "maintenance" level therapy. This means that they will not be pushing him to regain abilities or skills. We have seen how far he has come, and he is too young, at only 37, to condemn to a bedridden life.
We want to provide additional therapy for him to improve his quality of life to the best it can be, but out-of-pocket physical, occupational, and speech therapy can range from $100 - $375 per session, costing between $5,000 and $20,000 for one year of just one session of therapy per week.
While Dominick has made slow gains, my mother's health has continued to deteriorate. As a blood type match and in overall good health, I volunteered to be her living donor, and after many months of testing, the surgery will hopefully take place this summer. The estimated cost of the surgery and recovery, barring any complications, is $625,000, of which my parents' Medicare and Medicare Part G will only cover 80%, leaving them with at least $125,000 to pay, plus the cost of anti-rejection medications, which will cost approximately $2,000 - $3,000 per month, for the rest of her life.
Though these costs are incredibly high and terrifying for my parents, who are retired and living on Social Security and a small pension, the alternative is to watch my mother slowly die. There is no choice for us.
Please donate to help cover some of these overwhelming expenses for my mother and brother's life-saving and ongoing care.
If you are unable to donate, please share in your communities. My parents have always been the first to lend a hand to others, rarely asking for help for themselves, and they do not know that I have started this campaign.
Thank you for sharing, donating, and caring.
Diana Andriola
Co-organizers (2)
Diana Andriola
Organizer
Washington D.C., DC
Amanda Andriola
Co-organizer