Hello, my name is Bryan Ness, and Nancy Ness is my mother, who is 85 years old and a widow. She spent her entire adult life as a wife and mother. She was married to my dad, Iver Ness, until he died in 2015, after being married for almost 57 years. My mom and dad had two children, my sister, who died in 2012 from cancer, and me. As her only remaining child, last Fall my wife and I planned to have my mom move in with us here in Angwin, CA, as she was not doing well living alone.

Last November we moved her from her former home in Marysville to our house in Angwin. We had prepared a room for her and were looking forward to many years of having her with us. Unfortunately, the day after she arrived in Angwin, she had a heart attack and stroke, and ended up in the hospital. After recovering from the stroke she has been unable to move back in with us, as she has needed 24-hour assistance to meet her daily needs. We were able to find her an assisted living situation very close to where we live (just a 10-minute drive away) at Rose Haven, where the caregivers have lovingly cared for her.

My mom had saved over $20,000 in her savings account, an amazing thing given she has been living on just her Social Security since my dad died, but the cost of living at Rose Haven are so high that she is now out of money. She is in the process of applying for MediCal, which will cover her costs of staying in a skilled nursing facility, but they will not cover her staying at Rose Haven (as it is not a Medicare eligible facility). We are very concerned about her needing to move, for three reasons:

1. She has settled in well at Rose Haven and the caregivers are much better than what is likely available at a Medicare funded facility.

2. There are no Medicare funded facilities near where we live and she would end up 45 minutes or farther from where we live, making it much harder to visit her regularly.

3. Moving her again with her current cognitive state after the stroke would be traumatic and likely set back her quality of life.

So, we are hoping to, at the very least, raise enough money from friends and family to keep her at Rose Haven for 2 more months. At $4,000/month, this means she needs $8,000. In addition to the amounts already raised, some separate donations not funneled through GoFundMe have come in, thus allowing me to lower the goal here to $6145.

My larger dream would be that we could keep her there as long as she needs this level of care, so I would like to raise even more money to keep her there long-term. If enough friends and family donate, I will raise the goal in hopes of keeping her near us as long as possible. Although her doctor does not think it likely she will improve enough to be able to come home, we hope that, if God intervenes and helps her heal, she could potentially return to live with us. Thus, we at least would like to keep her at Rose Haven until then, or longer if needed.