Kajsa Thor needs our help

Our friend, your friend, the fiercely independent Kajsa Thor, needs our help.

On December 16, 2021, Kajsa suffered a massive stroke at her home in Sturgeon Bay, Wisconsin. Unable to contact anyone, Kajsa lay on the floor of her home for over 24 hours. After calling her numerous times and getting no answer, her sister Anna had the neighbor check on her. John called 911 while breaking into the house and together they found Kajsa.

The road back for Kajsa has proven to be a long and arduous one and she needs our help. After spending three months in a hospital setting, she is currently in a skilled nursing facility in Clinton, Wisconsin, with minimal interaction, therapy, etc. Our goal is to assist her financially and bring her back to Washington for a more intensive physical and social therapy program.

As you know, Kajsa is a fiercely independent woman and resisted asking for help, but she has run out of resources, and we feel we need to reach out to you. She has specific needs that we are trying to get taken care of. Any help that you can give is greatly appreciated.

Kajsa has already endured more struggle than anyone should have. The type of stroke Kajsa had is called a hemorrhagic stroke. This means that there was major bleeding into the brain and is often fatal. The right side of her skull had to be removed to relieve the pressure, or she would have died. After 3 months, the brain surgeon was able to reattach her skull successfully. One of the issues Kajsa is having is that she could not get treatment right away following the onset of the stroke. Lying on the floor for over 24 hours and not getting to a Level 1 trauma hospital for over 48 hours, caused the damage to her motor functions to be more severe and will take longer to regain. As of now, Kajsa is paralyzed on her left side and needs maximum help to complete day-to-day tasks.

Thank goodness Kajsa had medical insurance, so the majority of the staggering medical bills will be taken care of. Unfortunately, long term care is not included. At this point, four months later, Kajsa has run through her initial Medicaid insurance benefits and is now waiting for Social Security Disability Insurance to kick in as well as trying to navigate long term Medicaid to hopefully help her for what is sure to be years of therapies and rehabilitation.

Below are two of the more important needs we are looking to accomplish:

As we shared, our goal is to get her back to Washington so she can get more one-on-one support from a rehabilitation center team and, most importantly, from all of us. Even though Anna lives a couple of hours away, she visits Kajsa regularly. Anna has done an outstanding job and will continue to be Kajsa’s biggest advocate. Joanne has traveled there twice now, but Washington is where we/she would like her to be. To do this, she needs to make some benchmarks in physical therapy. Monies raised will help pay for additional therapy days and transportation to Washington.

We want to purchase a wheelchair for her. The chair she uses now is on loan from the facility, and it has a bad left wheel which makes it difficult to steer since she can only use her right side. It’s exhausting and frustrating for Kajsa to wheel herself around her room or down the hall to physical therapy. A good wheelchair will make a big difference.

If you can help, a big thank you! No amount is too small. It all will help.

Mike and Joanne Stanford