Funds for The Rogers Family

Hello, my name is Haley. I'm reaching out for help for my dear friends Russell and Sarah Rogers and their beautiful daughter Amberly.

On March 19th Amberly suffered a traumatic brain injury. Amberly went to a bounce house event and was kicked in the head by another patron. A medic was called as she was experiencing pain in her head and her body felt numb. The medic reported to the parents that she appeared fine. She went to bed that night and Sarah woke her up a few times to make sure she was ok as per the medic’s recommendations. The next morning, she reported she felt a little better and wanted to try and go to school. Sarah got Amberly on the school bus and went to work for an hour. Sarah’s motherly instincts told her something was not right. She decided to leave work, pull Amberly out of school, and take her to the ER. They did an X-Ray and put her in a neck brace and sent her home with a referral to the neuro department. Sarah contacted the neuro department as soon as they got home and was advised the next opening they had wasn’t until mid-April and that Amberly would need to remain in the brace in the meantime. Amberly started to have an increasing amount of shooting pain on the side of her head which she rated 9/10. Sarah called neuro again and was advised it was most likely a muscle spasm and it was ok. Sarah asked if would be ok for Amberly to take a nap as she was feeling very tired. They also said it would be ok to take a nap. While Amberly was napping Sarah went to the store for Tylenol and Motrin to help ease Amberly’s pain and picked Amberly’s sister up from school. When they returned Amberly’s sister went to go find her and they found her unresponsive with shallow breathing, a slow pulse and had thrown up. Russell looked at her pupils, one was dilated, and one was pinpointed. They called 911 and were taken to the ER in an ambulance. During the ride in the ambulance, the medics reported she had a seizure and a small stroke at some point. The neurosurgeon performed a craniotomy where they found a 12.5mm by 3mm brain clot with brain bleeding. Her brain had shifted over 3mm to the right which caused uncal herniation (which is the last step before death). They placed her in a medical induced coma for two days and had several tests completed. The doctor ordered an MRI and said he did not expect good results. However, he was shocked to see the damage was minimal. She still had bruising on her brain and brain stem as well as the spot where she had a small stroke. While things looked good, she was not out of the woods yet, they needed to see how she would respond.

At first, she couldn’t talk and could only respond by shaking her foot. Which then progressed to a thumbs up or down and then finally one-word responses. She could not get up or move without assistance. She cried in fear one night, feeling that she would be like this forever. Amberly is a fighter, determined, goes for what she wants, and she was not going to let this be her fate. She was determined to walk again. She required multiple therapy modalities such as Physical Therapy, Occupational Therapy, Speech Therapy and Clinical Therapy. Each day was a fight and physically and mentally exhausting. As you can imagine this has been a long challenging month for this family. While Sarah was with Amberly in the hospital, Russell was unable to be by her side due to their other two young children at home. Amberly is fighting a fight that no child should have to fight, but fight she has and has proved everyone wrong.

The great news is that she was discharged from the hospital last week, but her fight is still not over. This next year is going to be long and overwhelming. She cannot be a regular child. No running, jumping, sports, etc. She must maintain two feet on the ground. She still sometimes struggles with walking so physical therapy is required as well as speech therapy to get her back to where she was. She is now suffering from severe anxiety and fighting to be her happy self. To go back to school, she will have to be set up with specific requirements that the school agrees to. With the difficulty of her walking, stairs are next to impossible. Since the family was residing in a place that had stairs, the family had to relocate to a new residence.

I now want to tell you why they need your help. Two years ago, they were all living in Oregon. At that time, Russell suffered from a mental breakdown that was severe enough that he had to be admitted to a facility. This caused him to lose his job. With no income, they were forced to move to Texas to live with Sarah's brother. The line of work that Russell was in, is making it near impossible for him to work due to his mental illness. In normal situations, insurance would help pay for all these medical expenses. It just so happened, Sarah started a new job recently and her insurance was not in effect until April 1st. This accident happened just 11 days before insurance was in effect. Sarah and Russell are working with their insurance, the employer, and the hospital. These medical expenses that are not covered are adding up. The total bill is approximately $370,000 not including the cost of the appointments over this next year and multiple MRIs, therapies, etc. Sarah and Russ are incredibly happy and grateful to have their baby girl home and that she is alive and on her way to recovery. They also don't know how they will ever recover financially from this unfortunate accident.

From the bottom of our hearts, we humbly ask that you share this link with friends and family and if possible, a donation (any amount will help). All of these donations will go toward Amberly's medical expenses.