Help bring Tiahni Paddison home
Tiahni Paddison is 17 years old. She is the much-loved daughter of her parents Michael and Kali and younger sister of Reis and Blake. Not only is Tiahni a wonderful daughter, sister, granddaughter, niece, and fierce friend, she had high ambitions to continue her love of dance, finish Year 12, pursue tertiary studies in the field of physiotherapy and live a happy and independent life. However, on Friday 21st May, Tiahni’s life was turned upside down when she sustained a Severe Traumatic Brain Injury as a result of a serious motor vehicle accident in Castlereagh, NSW.
After weeks of fighting for her life, Tiahni has shown an enormous amount of persistence and strength and has defied all odds surviving the injuries she has sustained. Tiahni spent 3 weeks in an Induced Coma in the Intensive Care Unit at Westmead Hospital following the accident, during this time she underwent brain surgery battled pneumonia twice and has a cluster of blood clots in her left lung. Once Tiahni was out of her Coma, she was relocated to the Brain Injury Unit (BIU) at Westmead Hospital in a semi unconscious state, unable to speak, walk, eat, or do any of the usual daily things’ teenagers like to do. With the help of the staff at Westmead and Tiahni’s immediate family, she started her rehabilitation which has included physiotherapy to learn how to walk again, the skills required to eat independently, speech therapy, occupational therapy for daily tasks. After a long and exhausting journey for Tiahni and her family, they are nearly ready to bring her home.
Tiahni is in a wheelchair and requires constant care. The goal is to be able to bring her home to her safe space and continue with rehabilitation in order to give her the best chance of recovery. The costs involved with Tiahni’s recovery include but are not limited to; renovations to the home to allow wheelchair access in and out and around the family home, an upgrade of the bathroom to cater for wheelchair access, ongoing treatment costs which are not covered by iCare such as physio, hydrotherapy, speech, and occupational therapy, a tutor/educational support worker, option of intensive rehabilitation at Mt Wilga and the cost of transfers to appointments.
Kali and Michael have not been able to work for the last 9 weeks whilst they have rotated to be beside Tiahni due to Covid limitations. Kali and Michael are not the kind of people to ask for help; however we want to do our best to alleviate the financial strain on the family by supporting them with the costs involved in bringing her home. We want Tiahni’s family to be able to spend time supporting her without worrying about being locked out of hospital due to Covid or having to rush to return to work. We want to give Tiahni the best chance possible with her recovery so she can one day, get back to living the life she loved, and we will be forever grateful for any support offered to help the Paddison family during this difficult time.
