Please Help Us Bring Our Mom Home
Donation protected
On January 17, 2019, our mom Kathleen Grace Perez Gose suffered a major stroke while on vacation in the Philippines. She was visiting a cousin in Dipolog at the time, and hospitals in the area were unequipped to handle a stroke; they had to drive to 3 different hospitals to find one that had a room available, and all they were able to give to fight the swelling in her brain was saline and oxygen. For 2 days, our mom remained under those conditions until she was medically evacuated to a hospital with a dedicated stroke unit in Bacolod City.
She spent several weeks in the ICU battling not only the swelling of her brain, but a blood infection and pneumonia as well. She was finally discharged to the home and care of our cousin, the neurologist who took over her case after she was transferred to Bacolod, in mid-February. Both our mom and our dad have been staying there until now, where our dad has been taking care of our mom with the help of caregivers.
While our mom is still being fed primarily through a feeding tube with formula, she is now able to eat and swallow some solid food, enjoying mangoes, chicken and fish as part of her meals. She has physical therapy 3x a week to help her regain motion on the left side of her body, which was affected by the stroke. Unfortunately, there are no speech therapists in Bacolod who could work with her, but despite this setback, our mom is now starting to laugh, read and sometimes even sing when we talk to her at night.
After almost 5 months in the Philippines, we are now looking into bringing our parents back home to Florida at the end of July, which is why we are asking for help. Plane tickets for trips halfway around the world are, sadly, not cheap, and for our mom’s sake, we need nonstop flight options and/or the least amount of layovers possible. To have all our bases covered, her neurologist has agreed to be part of the traveling team, and we are also sending one of our brothers, who works in a hospital, to assist with the transportation. Our mom will need to be able to lay down during the 16-hour flight we are looking into, as it is still hard for her to remain sitting for longer than an hour or two, but this will set us back $7,000-$9,000 total depending on the seats. Any assistance that we would receive will go a long way in helping us bring them home.
Unfortunately, that is only one part of our plea for help since our mom did not have any health insurance. Once she is finally home, not only will she need new doctors and labs for tests, but she will have to resume her physical therapy as well, as she is still unable to walk. In addition, she will need both an occupational therapist and a speech therapist for the other functions she has to relearn how to do, along with 22 different medications that she has to take daily. While all the costs associated with bringing her back here are daunting, we are all excited to be able to physically be with both our parents again and just give them all the love and hugs and support that has been hard to convey through video chat for the last 5 months.
We are so incredibly grateful and humbled for each and every person who has already helped out, reached out and kept our mom and our family in their prayers from when the stroke first happened until now. Everyone’s support means everything to us, and we continue to be thankful for all the help that comes our way.
Thank you so much,
The Gose Family
She spent several weeks in the ICU battling not only the swelling of her brain, but a blood infection and pneumonia as well. She was finally discharged to the home and care of our cousin, the neurologist who took over her case after she was transferred to Bacolod, in mid-February. Both our mom and our dad have been staying there until now, where our dad has been taking care of our mom with the help of caregivers.
While our mom is still being fed primarily through a feeding tube with formula, she is now able to eat and swallow some solid food, enjoying mangoes, chicken and fish as part of her meals. She has physical therapy 3x a week to help her regain motion on the left side of her body, which was affected by the stroke. Unfortunately, there are no speech therapists in Bacolod who could work with her, but despite this setback, our mom is now starting to laugh, read and sometimes even sing when we talk to her at night.
After almost 5 months in the Philippines, we are now looking into bringing our parents back home to Florida at the end of July, which is why we are asking for help. Plane tickets for trips halfway around the world are, sadly, not cheap, and for our mom’s sake, we need nonstop flight options and/or the least amount of layovers possible. To have all our bases covered, her neurologist has agreed to be part of the traveling team, and we are also sending one of our brothers, who works in a hospital, to assist with the transportation. Our mom will need to be able to lay down during the 16-hour flight we are looking into, as it is still hard for her to remain sitting for longer than an hour or two, but this will set us back $7,000-$9,000 total depending on the seats. Any assistance that we would receive will go a long way in helping us bring them home.
Unfortunately, that is only one part of our plea for help since our mom did not have any health insurance. Once she is finally home, not only will she need new doctors and labs for tests, but she will have to resume her physical therapy as well, as she is still unable to walk. In addition, she will need both an occupational therapist and a speech therapist for the other functions she has to relearn how to do, along with 22 different medications that she has to take daily. While all the costs associated with bringing her back here are daunting, we are all excited to be able to physically be with both our parents again and just give them all the love and hugs and support that has been hard to convey through video chat for the last 5 months.
We are so incredibly grateful and humbled for each and every person who has already helped out, reached out and kept our mom and our family in their prayers from when the stroke first happened until now. Everyone’s support means everything to us, and we continue to be thankful for all the help that comes our way.
Thank you so much,
The Gose Family
Organizer
Karizze Gose
Organizer
Palm Harbor, FL