“Crippled but free, I was blind all the time I was learning to see…” ~The Grateful Dead

On the palindromic date of 7/19/17, Alannah was in a motor vehicle accident on I-880 in Oakland, California, where she was rear-ended by a 70,000 lb. dump truck that sent her spinning across a five-lane highway.

After seeking medical attention, Alannah was diagnosed with a traumatic brain injury (TBI), with frontal lobe and brainstem damage causing major symptoms and challenges with daily living; including vision and cognitive impairments, movement disorders (dystonia and TBI-induced Tourette Syndrome), neuro fatigue, sensory overload, and additional difficulties with speech, memory, emotional regulation, and executive functioning.

This life-altering catastrophic injury has caused Alannah to suffer a cascade of issues. For the most part, she has lost the ability to read (her former favorite activity), and as a result of the TBI, her lifelong academic career and desire to become an attorney came crumbling down in 2023 when she was dismissed from UC Hastings College of the Law. She has also faced recurrent financial and housing instability due to incurring approximately $333,000.00 in debt from this accident.

While many years of daily medical appointments and rehabilitation have helped Alannah, living with a TBI while supporting herself financially has made it difficult for her to focus on her health and healing. She has endured seven arduous years of navigating social services and our deeply-flawed medical system and she faces a long road ahead. She is hopeful that additional therapies can bring her to a near-full recovery and better functioning in her everyday life.

Your contribution will help Alannah to:

1. Access healthcare and afford ongoing medical expenses, vision therapy, assistive technology, medical equipment, functional cranial release with a functional neurologist, primitive reflex training with a sports medicine doctor; neurofeedback, brainspotting, and stellate ganglion block injections to restore the nervous system after years of trauma and PTSD; prolotherapy for pain, and more.

2. Achieve and maintain housing stability.

3. Repair her credit.

4. File and pay seven years of back taxes.

Thank you for taking the time to read Lana’s story and for contributing generously to this fundraiser. All proceeds will go directly to supporting Alannah’s medical and financial recovery.

“I’m still walkin’, so I’m sure that I can dance; just a saint of circumstance.” ~The Grateful Dead

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Update published 7/19/25:

Greetings!

It has been just over a year since I launched my GoFundMe, and there is so much I could say. And although I can write better than I can read these days, it has been challenging to find the time and stillness within to reflect and say hello and thank you to all of you.

Asking friends, family, acquaintances, and my extended support network for financial assistance has been a humbling experience, to say the least, and I only wish I had reached out for help sooner. That said, I am so grateful that I finally got the spiritual lesson of asking for help early and often. Through this fundraiser, I have begun to overcome some deeply entrenched conditioning that had me believing it was unacceptable to ask for help and that I needed to face life’s challenges alone.

In being vulnerable and asking for financial assistance, my request was met by the generosity of several donors. This overwhelming show of kindness has not only equipped me with the ability to handle some of the logistical and financial difficulties that come along with a lifelong condition (traumatic brain injury), but it has also made the last year bearable for me on a personal level. Thank you.

Your contributions this year have supported some major accomplishments. With your help, I have:

Completed neural therapy treatment goals with the lovely Dr. Karima Hirani.

Received 40 sessions of transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) at Piedmont Neuroscience Center (with around 10 more sessions to go).

Benefitted from pain management therapies with Osteopath Dr. Erskine and prolotherapy expert Dr. Andrew Kochan, where I expect to graduate and be placed on a maintenance plan in the next month.

Begun renting a room at my beloved friend Bruce’s home while I sort out Section 8 housing options.

Finished a dialectical behavioral therapy program to assist with emotional regulation.

Although I am in a better place now than I was a year ago, 2024 was by far the hardest year of my life. After 7 years of litigation against the trucking company that caused the traumatic brain injury (TBI), tragically, I lost my case. What would have been a $5.2 million jury verdict was a total loss, and we ended up walking away with $0 due to a number of issues that are not up for appeal.

July 19th will mark my 8-year TBI anniversary, and with long-term medical and social services appointments, it is clear that the work I need to do is far from done. Your continued donations will support me in my next round of treatment, which will include:

2-3 months of sports medicine and primitive reflex training with the brilliant Dr. John Marchese ($8,000).

10 stellate ganglion block injections for PTSD with Dr. Karima Hirani ($10,000).

Ongoing vision therapy and TBI rehabilitation at the Azzolino Clinic ($10,000).

10 sessions of transcranial magnetic stimulation ($3,000).

Neurofeedback: Finding a competent neurofeedback provider who is equipped to take my case ($8,000).

Because TBI is an invisible disability, and because I look healthy, it can be difficult for people to understand the symptoms I live with, often in silence, on a daily basis. This GoFundMe community has made it possible for me to receive long-overdue medical attention and cover other TBI-related medical expenses that would not be feasible without you.

Thank you for the love and support, and thank you for reminding me that I don’t need to battle life after TBI all on my own.