Mobility for our Pops and Nonno
Donation protected
Our Dad (and Nonno) is amazing - that is all we can say. He has taught us so many things and one of the reasons we are who we are today. He is a very proud Italian immigrant that worked his rear end off for many years in Massachusetts and retired when he was 55 years old. He has never asked for help in his life. Living in MA back then was hard for Italians as he spoke no English and had to work odd jobs until he found his passion which was working for Carando Classic Foods where he spent 27 years there. He was a machine. His story is phenomenal and it is so awesome to hear stories of his life - so much has changed since he was graced to this world. Tony moved him to GA a little over a year ago to help take care of him and our Mom and built an apartment in the basement for them so they could still lead their own lives as best they can. We are strong believers that they took us from childhood to adulthood and our responsibility is to help them now that they need it so they enjoy their golden years.
Fast forward to today. He is 81 years old and very, very sick and has fought medical issues for longer than we can even remember. He has heart issues that have almost killed him. Several open heart surgeries, value replacement, stints, the list goes on. He has several different forms of cancers that keep coming back but he seems to be winning each of those wars individually. The war he isn't winning, and it is sucking his life away, is his lung fibrosis that has no hope to get any better. Weekly a DME company delivers 24 oxygen tanks, refreshes his several home O2 systems and his pulmonologist basically has told him there is nothing left for him to do. He is on oxygen 24x7 and needs more than most portable machines can give so he needs these tanks to go about life. This impacts his breathing so much that just a few steps can put him in a state of breathing distress. To combat this, we fought with insurance and got him an electric wheel chair. What a win! However, now we are faced with a problem of his vehicle needing a specialized lift for the chair to put it inside his vehicle. We have found a company that will do this and my Dad has tried financing it but the companies that do that keep turning him down since he lives off his pension and social security payments and he is too high of a risk. He refuses to allow us to help here since we have helped him "so much" in his words. We know this goes back to his Italian pride. :)
He also needs dentures since he has had to have his teeth all pulled in the past couple weeks due to most of them rotting out. While this was not what he wanted, he had to do it. Since that was only $1300, Mom and Dad were able to support that on their own but they cannot afford the dentures and we just know he wants to have the teeth for his own sense of image. The pulling of his teeth literally drained their savings and they live penny to penny every week.
Our Dad isn't a quitter but we see more and more him starting to talk about it getting to the end of his time. We hate this. His lack of being able to get around is slowly depressing him and we just need to find a way to get these paid for. He has so much more to give to this world. Since he wants to do this on his own, we thought let's try a GoFundMe to see if we can get him the money he needs. The lift is roughly $3500, his teeth are expected to be $3000 and the difference we are asking for on his behalf is to support a rental car for him while his car is being retrofitted to support the chair.
We appreciate anything you can do to help our Dad and Nonno.
Tony, Cindy, Taylor, Shannon, Domenic, Bella, Austin, Matteo and Gianna (and Gigi too!!)
Ugo, Diane, AJ, Michael and Gio
Fast forward to today. He is 81 years old and very, very sick and has fought medical issues for longer than we can even remember. He has heart issues that have almost killed him. Several open heart surgeries, value replacement, stints, the list goes on. He has several different forms of cancers that keep coming back but he seems to be winning each of those wars individually. The war he isn't winning, and it is sucking his life away, is his lung fibrosis that has no hope to get any better. Weekly a DME company delivers 24 oxygen tanks, refreshes his several home O2 systems and his pulmonologist basically has told him there is nothing left for him to do. He is on oxygen 24x7 and needs more than most portable machines can give so he needs these tanks to go about life. This impacts his breathing so much that just a few steps can put him in a state of breathing distress. To combat this, we fought with insurance and got him an electric wheel chair. What a win! However, now we are faced with a problem of his vehicle needing a specialized lift for the chair to put it inside his vehicle. We have found a company that will do this and my Dad has tried financing it but the companies that do that keep turning him down since he lives off his pension and social security payments and he is too high of a risk. He refuses to allow us to help here since we have helped him "so much" in his words. We know this goes back to his Italian pride. :)
He also needs dentures since he has had to have his teeth all pulled in the past couple weeks due to most of them rotting out. While this was not what he wanted, he had to do it. Since that was only $1300, Mom and Dad were able to support that on their own but they cannot afford the dentures and we just know he wants to have the teeth for his own sense of image. The pulling of his teeth literally drained their savings and they live penny to penny every week.
Our Dad isn't a quitter but we see more and more him starting to talk about it getting to the end of his time. We hate this. His lack of being able to get around is slowly depressing him and we just need to find a way to get these paid for. He has so much more to give to this world. Since he wants to do this on his own, we thought let's try a GoFundMe to see if we can get him the money he needs. The lift is roughly $3500, his teeth are expected to be $3000 and the difference we are asking for on his behalf is to support a rental car for him while his car is being retrofitted to support the chair.
We appreciate anything you can do to help our Dad and Nonno.
Tony, Cindy, Taylor, Shannon, Domenic, Bella, Austin, Matteo and Gianna (and Gigi too!!)
Ugo, Diane, AJ, Michael and Gio
Organizer
Anthony Ronghi
Organizer
Watkinsville, GA