Hi, my name is Richard Acevedo and I’m recently retired from law enforcement and the U.S. military. My childhood friend Louis Lopez and I were Guardian Angels (A neighborhood watch patrol) together in the early 80s in New York City. My friend Louie lived a clean and honorable life…no drugs, no alcohol and gave to his community in so many ways. He risked his neck and his physical well being in the early 80s to help make NYC subways and its streets a safer place during a time the city was truly lawless and unsafe.

Louie had a two major strokes a little over three years ago that left him paralyzed from the waist down and with stage 4 kidney failure. Louie suffered from high blood pressure which runs in his family. We think the strokes manifested due to long term Covid issues and his co-morbidity of high blood pressure. Unfortunately those two issues created the perfect storm that destroyed my friend's health. He's in dialysis 3-4 days a week and immobile from the waist down and at 59 he’s the youngest guy in his nursing home.

Much to his mother’s heartbreak, she had to place him in a nursing home full time for intensive care as she is physically unable to care for him at the level he requires. My friend has been a literal prisoner in this nursing home for three years now. Louie has no other family besides his elderly mother. His mother is retired and lives on Social Security and since Louie has no financial means of his own since the strokes, his social security disability and Medicaid all goes to a nursing home and to his care. To be frank…when you are on Medicaid your medical care and choice of nursing home facilities are subpar at best.

No amount of money is going to solve my friend’s current medical issues. I’m simply trying to raise enough money to get Louie an electric wheel chair to help with his mobility and expand his very limited world. His insurance keeps telling his mother the request for an electrical wheelchair is under review, but they just keep stonewalling her. It’s been a year long process and he hasn’t gotten an approval for an electric wheelchair in all that time. I suspect his insurance company has essentially written him off.

Everyday my friend gets hoisted from his bed by a crane like contraption, he gets sponge bathed, his diaper and clothes changed and he’s placed in a second hand non-electrical wheelchair the nursing home provided him. He sits in that wheelchair for 12-15 hours a day in a room he shares with 3-4 other people. When he’s not in that room, he gets wheeled to the basement of the nursing home to get dialysis 3-4 days a week. The only other place he gets to see is a small break room where he has meals with his mother.

At 80 years of age, his mother visits her son 4-5 days a week. She cleans his clothes, brings him food from home because the food in this nursing home is horrible to say the least. Often times, my friend looks disheveled and unkept because the facility he resides at won’t cut his hair or shave him without requiring additional fees to do so. As his only friend that visits him, I often will trim his hair and shave him. It’s his only small pleasure and measure of dignity and I save his mother paying the additional fees as she struggles with her own financial needs as senior citizen.

What will this wheel chair do for Louie? At present he cannot wheel himself in a non-electrical wheel chair. The stroke left him with diminished upper body strength. His medical insurance will no longer pay for any physical therapy for him. He’s a prisoner to two rooms and a small courtyard adjacent to his nursing home. He cannot get to either of these places unless somebody wheels him there. It’s a busy and understaffed nursing home. I’m trying to help him get the ability to move around on his own when he wants to and when he’s feeling constrained and suffocated in his very small world…nothing more. The wheelchair won’t solve all his problems but it will provide him with a small measure of freedom and help him with his mental outlook. He often states he’s just sitting around like a potted plant waiting to die. Nobody deserves to live or exist that way or feel forgotten. I don’t know how much time my friend has in this world with his stage 4 kidney failure and everyday we are terrified that he will have another stroke looming over the horizon. My friend has all his mental faculties, he's sharp, but he’s a prisoner in his body. Whatever time God grants him in this world I want him to have the ability to move around, which in turn will improve his dignity and mental outlook. Any help or donation however small will help a guy who helped his city when his city needed it. Now he needs some help. I know everyone has their burdens and are busy in the world, so I thank you in advance for your time in reading this lengthy but very important story. God bless you all.