Mike's Traumatic Brain Injury Recovery

On January 5, 2021 Mike DiLorenzo and his family's lives were forever and abruptly changed. In the weeks leading up to that date Mike had not been feeling well and had seen various doctors trying to determine what was wrong. On 1/5 Mike knew that he needed to go to the ER, after being at the hospital for hours, Mike then went into full cardiac arrest in the ER. Doctors administered CPR and were able to revive him after undergoing over ten minutes of CPR. Mike spent the weeks following in a coma. The lack of oxygen to his brain for over ten minutes has left him with an anoxic traumatic brain injury. Anoxic brain injuries are caused by a complete lack of oxygen to the brain, which results in the death of brain cells after approximately four minutes of oxygen deprivation.

Mike spent weeks in critical condition in the hospital, followed by months in both an acute TBI rehabilitation hospital and then a sub acute rehabilitation setting. Navigating this already difficult situation was made even more challenging and stressful due to covid. There were long periods of time where Mike's family was unable to see him and once visitation was finally allowed, it was very limited.

After 6 months of being in inpatient settings, Mike's family was informed that insurance had denied him of any more care. We were made aware of this in late June which was 3 weeks after the denial. The cost of this type of rehabilitation setting is very expensive and we had been assured that he would be fully covered until his discharge date in late July.

Mike has come a VERY long way on his journey. In addition to being in a coma, he has overcome weeks on a ventilator and months on a feeding tube and is now home but he requires 24 hour care which insurance does not cover. Due to the covid environment, there is also a shortage of workers available through insurance to provide the crucial services (cognitive, physical and occupational therapies) which he desperately needs to continue progressing.

Mike is a fighter, he battled and overcame bone marrow cancer twice in the early 2000's. We know that he can continue to make progress! Any donation, no matter how small, will be tremendously helpful in going towards paying for the home aide care that he currently requires, acquiring the much needed therapy services, along with transportation service costs and the various bills that continue to come in from his 7 month stay in the hospitals.