Hi!

Our names are Joanna & Claudia, we have a little brother and his name is Michael (Mike) Esparza <3, he is 21 years young, has a passion for cars, loves to play video games and has some of the best dark humor you could find in a person! Our brother is a selfless person, he puts others before himself even when he shouldn’t.. While he’s always been more on the quiet side his presence is always felt.

Unfortunately, on the night of the 15th he was involved in a very serious car accident that almost took his life. When brought to the hospital his life was literally hanging on by a thread. Thankfully, the amazing surgeons and nurses at Chandler Regional Hospital were able to help save his life in that moment.

Knowing that he pulled through and is still with us to this day is a sigh of relief, but it doesn’t take away what he is currently going through at this moment as he continues to fight to recover…

The accident has left his body in shambles. His spine was stretched out and while he has decent mobility from the right side of his body his left side is very weak, he has little to no movement of his left arm and little mobility on his left leg. There is a high possibility he won’t be able to hear from his right ear due to debris going so far down into his canal. He had to have plastic surgery on the right side of his face starting from his ear down to his chin since it was lifted up. They placed a metal plate on his jaw and sewed it shut so he doesn’t cause any more possible damage for about the next 6 weeks, the Dr’s have also placed him on a trachea collar during his recovery which we hope will not become permanent but it all depends on his body and how it recovers. He was placed on a ventilator upon arrival to breathe since he couldn’t on his own. We saw a slight ray of sunshine a couple of days ago when he was taken off and was able to breathe on his own for over 14 hours but unfortunately that ray quickly dissipated when they found out he had caught Pneumonia which lead him to be put back on the ventilator on full settings. On top of his serious injuries he has more battles coming his way each day as he attempts to get better…

The plan after he passes the pneumonia on, is to hopefully have him out of the ICU without the ventilator and placed in an LTAC (Long-term acute care) facility for his physical therapy rehabilitation.

It shatters our hearts knowing that this is happening to him. He’s just a kid… he just turned 21 in April, he was looking forward to the new chapter in his life. But it was all robbed from him in mere seconds that Friday night.

As his body continues to fight to recover in the hospital it unfortunately means his bill is being racked up. As we all know, the American health system is in it’s lightest terms… not the best and could potentially leave our little brother with massive debt, while he does have state insurance it only covers so much and it also only gives him limited options for rehabilitation which leaves us worried after visiting one of the facilities and reading the many reviews of his only options per his insurance. Our mother herself is going through legal battles due to an injury she had herself earlier this year, so our brother’s medical bills will be no easy add-on for her. On top of the stress of his recovery, the stress of having a hefty bill is something we don’t want him to have to deal with so he can solely focus on getting better.

To say this accident turned my brother’s life around is an understatement. While we are a thousand times grateful that he is still alive and breathing we know this will take a huge toll on his mental health. We can see his frustration of not being able to talk and tell us what he wants and it has been just a mere 12 days, we can’t even imagine what is going through the his mind…

Our family has decided to set up this GoFundMe account for him to help ease some of the burden, while we know he possibly might not get close to what we asked, anything helps and it is insanely appreciated. It’s completely understandable if it’s not possible to donate, we know these are hard times on everyone but if you could please share our story or the link to his GoFundMe that would be incredibly appreciated.

Fortunately, through this storm it seems like he is trying hard to not let this entirely affect him, his humor is still there. He will give us a smile here and there to assure us he is ok. If we are talking about a topic he is interested in he will move his eyebrows or right leg/arm to chime in. When he’s inclined to hearing music (very rare) he will bop his right leg to the sound of the beat. He is insanely aware of his surroundings, he knows what day of the week it is and he knows it’s fall season (a favorite because of Halloween). He wiggles his fingers and tries to spell things with the movement of his fingers to attempt to communicate with us. If we say a joke or something he agrees he will smirk or smile.

These little things are what continue to to give us hope that he will make a strong recovery.

We know that the little brother we know and love before this incident may never come back to us as this has been a very traumatic experience for him he will be a different person once he is finally recovered but we also know he is not entirely gone and we will fight alongside him to make sure he doesn’t lose that side of him.

In order to respect our brother’s privacy as much to our ability we have decided to upload just one photo of him here at the hospital. He already is not too fond of visitors and we don't want to make him upset if he finds out we posted a few photos of his condition online. The rest of the photos of Michael are few photos throughout the years as we’ve seen him grow <3.

It’s how we want him to be seen and known by others, not the current state he’s in.

Again, we’d like to give our appreciation to those who have been helping, those who continue to help, and those who are new who want to help us along the way. We are grateful for anything that will help our little brother get through this nightmare.

Sincerely,

Joanna G. & Claudia E.

UPDATE 10/2/23

Here is a little update for those who are keeping up with Michael's condition... The Dr approved him to be able to leave Chandler regional and go to his physical therapy facility this afternoon. He's back off of the ventilator and breathing on his own with little breaks at night with the vent so he can sleep. He got to go outside for a little bit Saturday morning and he was very happy about it. My mom said he looked up at the sky and stared at it for a moment before smiling... He went back to his ICU room with a huge smile on his face. Unfortunately, he's still has the pneumonia so he got a little fever last night but overall he's doing as good as he can. The speech therapist placed a speaking valve on his trachea collar earlier this morning and my mother and I got to hear his voice... His first words were "hello" and "I love you". I had told him I had missed his voice so much and he said me too, poor kid must've felt frustrated unable to speak for over two weeks. He tolerated his valve very well, lasted a little over 5 minutes.

Our next step now is getting him to move and wait until his weeks are up for his jaw to be able to ween him off the trachea collar if possible. We're hoping his physical therapy sails smoothly.. I will update more on his condition as be improves.

Thank you very much for all your support, my brother is loved and it makes me incredibly happy to see that.

-Joanna

10/10/23 - UPDATE

Here is another quick update on Mike's progress. He's going on week 2 at the LTAC facility, first week went smoothly. His therapies were going good, last Friday he actually stood up for a few seconds, he said it felt weird but it was a step in the right direction. He can write on a white board with a little bit of help by holding his arm steady, he moves his left side a lot more than he had before which is an improvement! He has tried the speech valve but does not like it, he has a hard time tolerating and it makes him nauseous. Unfortunately, over this weekend break from therapy it seems he caught a stomach problem. Dr's are trying to figure out the problem but he has pain on his left side of abdomen and is nauseous most of the time. As far as his breathing he'll be good off the ventilator for a day but the next day after breathing on his own he is beat and you can tell breathing on his own takes a toll on him so he has to be placed back on the ventilator for the day. Right now our worry is now his stomach, it's definitely another roadblock during his recovery that's stalling him from fully healing as he's refused to do therapy two days in a row... Hopefully his stomach problem is situatued and he can get back on track to continue his therapy to move onto the next step of his recovery which will hopefully be inpatient Acute therapy within a month or so...