Help the Rocha-Chesney family with expenses

Hello Friends and Family!

It has taken me quite sometime to bite the bullet and create this fundraiser. Please bare with me while reading. I’m not one to ask for help EVER! I am usually the one to HELP everyone else. With that being said…here we go….

As most of you know our family has been through A LOT in the past few years.

I was working at TUSD when I had two strokes in 2019 and started to fall ill. In November of 2020 they basically forced me to resign leaving me without income. My illness lead to open heart surgery (January 2021) during the height of Covid (some of the scariest days of my life). I was so thankful to be home with my family and recover. It was hard but here I am, still pushing through even on the hard days. Mentally the surgery took a lot out of me and I really should have sought help then. I didn’t because I thought I was ok.

During my recovery and after my mom was helping us financially because, let’s face it, living on one income now days is HARD. She had the means to do it and she did because she could and wanted to help us.

Fast forward to October of last year. I was SO excited to be hired at Fullerton School District. Right around the corner (what a blessing). My first day was October 2, 2022. I called my mom daily on my lunch break or after work to tell her about my day and hear about her’s. She was so proud and happy for me to be back at work and SO WAS I.

On October 21, 2022 I went to work as usual (3 weeks in) still adjusting and learning the ropes of my NEW job. On my lunch break, I called my mom like I had been. I could immediately tell something was wrong, being that she only lived a few blocks from us. I called Caitlyn and asked her to meet me at nana’s house. We walked in to find my mom in her bed and not in good shape. She had fallen and hit her head, she was black and blue and looked like someone beat the crap out of her. As stubborn as she was it was a fight to get her to the hospital but we did. She went into emergency surgery for a perforated bowl and (long story short) was VERY ill. She was intubated for about a month. She was at UCI in great hands. It was an up and down rollercoaster for the next few months and in January I had to make the heart breaking decision to be able to be there for my mom or to continue to try to navigate monitoring her health care or limit my ability to be there and continue to grow in my new job. I stood in the parking lot of Kindred Hospital and called my boss to say “I couldn’t ethically continue to be 100% present at work and not be able to navigate my mom’s health and recovery.” On March 9, 2023, I had to sign paperwork acknowledging my that mom was not going to recover and that they had done all they could for her. My mom passed away on March 10, 2023. All of her financial help stopped that day.

We learned the same week that Nathan’s mom had been placed on hospice. She had been battling lung cancer for a couple years and had declined in health. Frances (Nathan’s mom) passed away on April 16, 2023.

In 5 short weeks we lost BOTH of our mothers. Our family was broken, destroyed and devastated. We kept pushing as best as we possibly could but the grief was unbearable. I was not prepared to go back to work, I could barley get out of bed everyday to function in life. I didn’t get out of bed everyday. I couldn’t.

Meanwhile, Nathan continued to work 48 (occasionally 7 days a week) hours a week to keep us afloat. He knew that’s what he needed to do to for our family. It was hard, it was exhausting and we both (all 4 of us actually) were still grieving HUGE losses.

Being that I am an only child we knew we had to make a decision on what we were going to do with my mom’s home, car and belongings. My mom didn’t have a trust or will so the only option is to hire a lawyer and go through probate (I still haven’t started this process due to our finances). We decided the best option for our family was to leave our rental home and move into my mom’s house.

It was hard, a rough decision, mentally I didn’t know if I could do it. We decided it was our ONLY option BUT, for all of us (especially the girls and I) we needed to make some changes to her home.

Nathan spent countless hours doing cosmetic updates to the house and navigating how we were going to make it work. All of this while working full time. It was exhausting for him and hard on his body but he made it happen. We officially moved in the beginning of October 2023.

The first night we stayed here was hard, I was sleeping in the same room where my mom was before she left her home FOREVER! Mentally it was A LOT! The following day, I was still trying to navigate being in our (my childhood) home. I went into psychosis paralysis. What is that? I really don’t know how to explain it other than I lost my mind (literally). That evening Nathan and the girls had no idea what was happening. They thought I was having another stroke. They called 911 and I do somewhat remember them coming to our house but it almost felt like a dream. I refused to go to the hospital, the police and paramedics left and I guess I fell asleep. The next morning Nathan woke up to go to work but noticed I was not well. He put me in his truck and drove me to Kaiser in Anaheim. All I can remember is I thought he was going to kill me and that he was the devil. I was seeing things that weren’t real, I was having thoughts I couldn’t comprehend or control. I wouldn’t walk in the hospital. I just wanted to go home. The girls came to the hospital and I was still outside, screaming, crying, fighting help. The details of it all still play in my mind and trying to understand it is exhausting!

Security couldn’t force me to go in, they had a nurse come out and talk to me and I wanted no part of going into the ER. Camryn called the Anaheim police to try to get me to go in. I was so mad I just wanted to go home. They sent out the CAT Team and they were able to get me to go in. I was placed in a room with a glass door, alone, with a security officer staring at me from the outside. I was paranoid, scared and had no idea what was happening or what was going to happen. I called Nathan to come get me but he couldn’t. I was placed on a 72 hold and was transferred to a mental hospital in LA! I remember getting there, them making me strip down to nothing and giving me clothes that didn’t fit me. I was humiliated, scared and terrified! They took me to a room with two beds and night stands, all of which were bolted to the ground. The windows were covered with paint so I couldn’t see outside. Let’s just say that I thought I was in HELL and I walked up and down the halls screaming and trying to get out. It was like a horror movie. I do not remember the next 3 days of my life AT ALL. I finally was able to come to grips and understand (with the help of medication and being held down to get the medication in me) that I was there to get HELP mentally.

We were supposed to be out of the rental house while I was “locked up”. Nathan and the girls (along with some amazing friends) worked their butts off to get stuff moved and the rental cleared out. There was an unplanned garage sale and things were sold and/or given away because they had no idea what to do. They did what they had to do TOGETHER and I couldn’t be more proud of them. They made it happen.

I was released on Sunday, October 1, 2023. I was only released because I had already been seeking mental help through Kaiser and I was scheduled to start IOP (intensive outpatient program) virtually. It’s 10 days of extensive therapy for 4 hours a day. They adjusted my medication and I was feeling “better”. We were told that I needed to try to keep my stress and anxiety level as low as possible.

Nathan had been having some chest tightness and heart palpitations for almost a month or more. He kept saying it was ok but I didn’t think it was something we should ignore so I made him a doctors appointment for Monday, October 9, 2023. They did an EKG and we were told he wasn’t actively having a heart attack but that it showed he had (at some point) had a minor heart attack. This news scared the crap out of me. Nathan is the one who takes care of us, works overtime to put food on the table, keep the lights on and everything else.

The same day I received the news that my grandmother (mom’s mom) was declining rapidly. She had fallen ill a few months ago and was moved to a board and care facility. I had planned to go see her the following day (Tuesday) after my therapy session in the morning. A couple hours after we returned home from Nathan’s appointment my aunt said that they weren’t sure she’d make it through the night. I rushed to her side with my aunt and my cousin. She passed shortly after 9:30pm on Monday, October 9, 2023.

I’m not sharing this to ask for sympathy or pity for our family, I’m sharing this because I need to help my family as much as I possibly can and the only way I can possibly help them is to ask my friends and family to help us if they are in a position to do so!

Because of the loss of my mom who had helped us financially we had fallen behind on bills. We all know with that comes hits to credit scores and more added stress and anxiety! We are significantly struggling financially right now. I’m not able to seek employment yet as I’m still working on my mental health. I’ve applied for disability (of any kind) but that takes about 6 months to get an answer.

If you’ve gotten this far God Bless you because it’s A LOT and I feel very vulnerable doing this. I’m ashamed and embarrassed to even do this but if I don’t ask, and put myself out there then no one knows, right?

If you can spare a few dollars to help us, I can assure you when we are in a better position financially we will continue to help those we can.

Some people may wonder if we were left with inheritance from either of our mothers and that is a discussion I’m not going to get into here. The quick answer is that funds are being withheld at the time! If you’d like to ask privately about this I’d be happy to answer questions. It’s just not information I’m comfortable with sharing now. We hope to get some things resolved as soon as possible BUT, it’s going to take some time.

Thank you all for anything you can give to our family, even if it’s thoughts and prayer and shares!