Kathy Jensen Medical Help From Broken Hip-Shoulder
Donation protected
My mother Kathy is recovering, very slowly and painfully, from a broken hip and broken shoulder with overwhelming bills and overwhelming difficulties adding up. She tripped over an extremely poorly placed and difficult to see clothing display stand at a department store in Rochester, MN a week before Christmas 2020 ('perfect' ending to a 'perfect' year!!!). She tripped and fell violently on the hard tiled floor, which caused her left hip and left shoulder to break on impact.
After laying on the ground in pain with some shoppers/employees around her, waiting for an ambulance and paramedics to assess her and take her to the hospital, she had a full hip replacement surgery the following day. They opted against surgery on her shoulder partially so that she could use it (painfully) to rehab her replaced hip as that was more urgent (the shoulder may have to be done later, though finally out of a sling after a few months, it is still non-weight bearing). She spent 3 days at the hospital post-surgery, and then was moved to a nursing home for continued care and rehab.
Due to being 65 years old, living alone in a 2nd floor apartment (with no elevator), and COVID (especially dangerous in nursing homes), she had to stay in an isolated room at the nursing home for almost 5 weeks before being deemed well enough to go back home. Being normally an extremely active and social person in her community, and having almost never taken any sick time over the past few decades from work, that was a very difficult situation to be in - pain notwithstanding. She works as a school-age paraprofessional, and a good part of her job includes driving, which she has been unable to do (work or drive) for over 2 months.
Since being home, she has to go to physical therapy 2-3 times per week (for the next few months or more). Although "well enough" to be back home, she is in near constant pain all day and night between her hip and shoulder still (making rest/sleep at any time very difficult and sporadic). And, because of the hip and shoulder limitations to move freely, and trying to utilize a cane (with a healing shoulder), she has developed very bad compensatory pain in her back, which resulted in multiple ER visits in the past few weeks.
She hired an attorney to try and work with the department store for taking their part of responsibility...so far to no avail. I visited the store the day after her accident, and the exact place where she tripped and fell, and that area setup along with many others in the store are extremely poorly laid out, making walking through or around difficult (at best), tricky (mostly), and dangerous (at worst)...at any age/agility.
Between the uncovered medical bills, lack of ability to do or assistance needed with basic daily needs (cleaning, laundry, cooking, shopping, etc), work concerns, and very constant pain and suffering (allowing her at best to get a couple hours of sleep each night)...it has taken quite a toll. Anyone who has had bad chronic pain, from age or an injury, knows how taxing that can be mentally and physically to be hurting 24/7 for months and counting.
So all that said, I created this Go Fund Me page to try and help facilitate at least a little bit of relief (financially, physically, and mentally), for the person that would in a heartbeat do the same for anyone she knows. The hope is the department store will take care of the medical bill aspect, though they have yet to have much or any communication. But, even if they do what should be done, the tangible costs that have been and will be experienced with this incident for many months to come are well above and beyond 'just' the hospital bill. All this, because a store is unable to set up their displays well enough to allow worry-free movement through the store by all...instead cramming as much as they can and overloading their store in the name of profits at the expense of safety and mobility of their customers.
Thank you so much for taking the time to read this. Anything will help her...including, and honestly as importantly, your thoughts and prayers for her recovery, pain subsiding, and also her future work ability.
After laying on the ground in pain with some shoppers/employees around her, waiting for an ambulance and paramedics to assess her and take her to the hospital, she had a full hip replacement surgery the following day. They opted against surgery on her shoulder partially so that she could use it (painfully) to rehab her replaced hip as that was more urgent (the shoulder may have to be done later, though finally out of a sling after a few months, it is still non-weight bearing). She spent 3 days at the hospital post-surgery, and then was moved to a nursing home for continued care and rehab.
Due to being 65 years old, living alone in a 2nd floor apartment (with no elevator), and COVID (especially dangerous in nursing homes), she had to stay in an isolated room at the nursing home for almost 5 weeks before being deemed well enough to go back home. Being normally an extremely active and social person in her community, and having almost never taken any sick time over the past few decades from work, that was a very difficult situation to be in - pain notwithstanding. She works as a school-age paraprofessional, and a good part of her job includes driving, which she has been unable to do (work or drive) for over 2 months.
Since being home, she has to go to physical therapy 2-3 times per week (for the next few months or more). Although "well enough" to be back home, she is in near constant pain all day and night between her hip and shoulder still (making rest/sleep at any time very difficult and sporadic). And, because of the hip and shoulder limitations to move freely, and trying to utilize a cane (with a healing shoulder), she has developed very bad compensatory pain in her back, which resulted in multiple ER visits in the past few weeks.
She hired an attorney to try and work with the department store for taking their part of responsibility...so far to no avail. I visited the store the day after her accident, and the exact place where she tripped and fell, and that area setup along with many others in the store are extremely poorly laid out, making walking through or around difficult (at best), tricky (mostly), and dangerous (at worst)...at any age/agility.
Between the uncovered medical bills, lack of ability to do or assistance needed with basic daily needs (cleaning, laundry, cooking, shopping, etc), work concerns, and very constant pain and suffering (allowing her at best to get a couple hours of sleep each night)...it has taken quite a toll. Anyone who has had bad chronic pain, from age or an injury, knows how taxing that can be mentally and physically to be hurting 24/7 for months and counting.
So all that said, I created this Go Fund Me page to try and help facilitate at least a little bit of relief (financially, physically, and mentally), for the person that would in a heartbeat do the same for anyone she knows. The hope is the department store will take care of the medical bill aspect, though they have yet to have much or any communication. But, even if they do what should be done, the tangible costs that have been and will be experienced with this incident for many months to come are well above and beyond 'just' the hospital bill. All this, because a store is unable to set up their displays well enough to allow worry-free movement through the store by all...instead cramming as much as they can and overloading their store in the name of profits at the expense of safety and mobility of their customers.
Thank you so much for taking the time to read this. Anything will help her...including, and honestly as importantly, your thoughts and prayers for her recovery, pain subsiding, and also her future work ability.
Organizer
Jason Jensen
Organizer
Rochester, MN