Help Linda's Journey to Recovery

Linda brings so much joy and light into the world, let's show some love and support her on this enormous health journey.

Linda (my mom) had a congenital heart defect that was causing a lot of damage and needed to be fixed. She made it through surgery, but crashed for a few minutes during recovery and suffered a brain injury. She's been fighting her way back. "I'm not done yet!" she says! It's been a hard road and there's still a lot ahead. We're asking for help getting Linda the support she needs through her recovery journey, insurance denials, bed-holds, medical needs, "stuff" needs, care and services, etc.

Jenny and Brad (and Gus and Eddie!) have been supporting her through this, spending time with her and managing her care about 6 days per week since the surgery, and as long as Linda is fighting, we're here to be her team. She keeps having set-backs, but she still hasn't stopped improving. From those early days when she was on a ventilator, didn't have her memories, couldn't really move anything, couldn't talk, couldn't eat, to now, when we see her get a little further all the time, we're so so proud of her. The last week of May, she had enough strength and coordination in her right leg to move it without help and with intention for hours (her left leg has been moving for a long time, but her right one was a little behind). The first week of June, she was finally cleared through excellent swallowing technique to eat regular food that has been cut up. This week, she's back in the hospital treating a thing. Two steps forward, one step back, still moves us forward. Each time she has a set-back, she has a few days of acute aphasia and a few weeks of delirium, but then stabilizes back to being all Linda.

This progress has taken a massive amount of support and will continue to on that journey to better health and more independence. We love her so much, and I promise all of you who love my mom so much too that we are doing absolutely everything humanly possible to give her the smoothest version of a rough journey.

We’re looking now to what Linda needs over the next few weeks and months to survive and hopefully thrive, and we want to make sure we’re able to provide that. We’re used to being helpers, but in this situation, there is more needed than what our hearts, hands, and feet can provide, and we’re asking our communities - mine (Jenn’s), Brad’s, and Linda’s - to chip in so we can get her everything she needs and deal with medical expenses.

A big thank you to everyone offering help and suggesting we put this together for her. I'll share more details of this story along the way as updates. We invite you to celebrate along with us as Linda fights to get her strength and independence back. We love you. Thank you.