Roads to Recovery: Help for Jeff Roads

On July 17, 2018, Jeff suffered a massive basal ganglia hemorrhagic stroke ten days before his 49th birthday.  He was getting ready for work when the stroke occurred and was found hours later by our mother in the living room of our home in Homestead, IA.  His doctors said a stroke of his kind is rare and they are still unsure of what caused it.  Our dad did everything like he was supposed to; he was active, drank lots of water, didn't smoke, and only drank occasionally. He is also a disabled Navy veteran.  Doctors say that it may have been caused by stress from his job as a supervisor for the United States Postal Service.  

Our dad has had a rough time in the hospital and is on his 4th hospital due to insurance not approving his care or rehab.  Originally, doctors told us that with the right care, he should be able to make a full recovery.  However, with bouncing between facilities and lack of care, our dad's recovery outlook  is unsure and only time will tell if he will  work or function normally again.  He bounced from the University of Iowa Hospital in Iowa City(July-August) to Select Specialty Hospital in Davenport (August-September) to back and forth from On With Life Rehab Center in Ankeny and University of Iowa hospital  (September-December) and finally at the Veteran Affairs Hospital in Des Moines (December-present).   

Jeff thrived at On with Life until insurance decided, on December 13th, that he was not making enough progress for their liking and kicked him out.  Our mom was given a 7 hour notice to remove him from the facility and take him home.  Our dad requires 24/7 care as he is immobile on his entire left side and requires a feeding tube for supplemental nutrition.  Our house is not set up for him to come home and insurance refuses to pay for any nursing care.  We were lucky enough to have the VA Hospital accept our dad for care before he had to come home.  The VA is now helping us with most  of the equipment, a wheelchair lift into the home,  and his hospital care this last month. Up until December, our dad was denied VA care even though he is a disabled veteran.  He had not seen a VA a doctor in the last two years and so he was not eligible.  We were fortunate as someone stepped in to help us and get our dad the help he needed.

Jeff will be coming home as soon as the house is ready for him.  We are hoping to raise the funds to remodel a bathroom to become handicap accessible, acquire a wheelchair accessible vehicle or add modifications to one we already own, and purchase any other equipment that insurance will not cover.  Since insurance will not pay for nursing care, that will fall onto to our mom.  Without a modified vehicle, our mom will not be able to take Jeff to his doctor and physical therapy appointments.  She also would not  be able pick up my little brother (11) from school activities or even get groceries without bringing Jeff along, as he cannot be left alone and needs 24/7 care.

Our dad was the main income in our family and he is now out of sick leave.  He does not have disability insurance and is not of retirement age, so we will be losing his income.  Additionally,  we have near exhausted our savings due to the first few months of medical bills and expenses.  He is a disabled Navy veteran and has worked for the United Postal Service for 23 years.  Our mom is currently self employed and will not be able to work outside the home due to being our dad's caregiver.  There are 5 of us kids with the youngest being eleven years old and then three of us are in college.  We have tens of thousands of dollars of medical bills not covered by insurance and an unmodified house.  His equipment and bathroom modification costs are simply out of our reach.  

Any help you can give would be greatly appreciated! We hope that our dad continues to improve, but we need funds now to give him a handicap accessible home, and help make it easier to take care of him as his recovery continues. If we raise anything above our goal, that money will be used to  help us pay off medical bills. We are fortunate that Jeff’s risk of another stroke is very slim, but he has developed other health issues due to this process, so we know medical and rehab bills will continue.

If you would like more history on Jeff’s recovery you can follow on “Roads to Recovery” on Facebook! It will give more details on his progress and medical insurance fiascoes. Our dad has been a fighter, and we hope that near full recovery is possible with the right tools to make that happen. Any help you can give will be appreciated, no matter how small, every little bit adds up.  Please help our dad on his "Roads to Recovery".