Pats Rehab: Learning to speak again

 

On memorial day, after suffering a stroke sometime in the early hours of the day, my Mom Pat Gacho found herself confused, weak, frightened...and for the first time since she was in diapers nearly 60 years ago, she was unable to express herself.

In the brief weeks since Memorial Day, she has started headlong down a long road to recovery and has started making great progress in regaining her life.   She is now out of the hospital, but cannot yet speak, cannot drive a car, and cannot (yet) work.

A vigorous schedule of rehabilitation and challenges lay ahead for Pat:  
* She has multiple speech therapies per week, going twice per day some days
* She has physical therapy to regain her former fighting shape
* During the "downtime" she has, she is working with a few amazing apps on the Ipad that greatly increase her capability to improve during the first weeks of recovery.  (The first 30-60 days of stroke recovery tend to hold most of the recovery of skills)
* She is joining a support group of people who have been the victims of strokes, and going to meet this group out in Wheaton a couple times per week.

What can you do to help?

Outside of your prayers and well wishing, you can help Pat sprint through this 30-60 days stretch.

What Will We Do With The Funds Raised Here?
1) Pay for the $100 a day co-pay to facilitate speech and physical therapy
2) Get Pat to and from therapy, groups, and to see doctors.  She is months away from driving.
3) Purchase more apps designed for recovery (1) for the iPad.  These aren't $2 apps, many cost hundreds of dollars!
4) Bridge any gap between her last paychecks and the short term disability.

The aformentioned apps allow her to communicate right now by forming sentences with pictures, while simultaneously regrowing synapses in her brain to associate things with words and syllabals.  

Other apps will allow her to practice speaking, pronounciation, and vocabulary.  Some apps stimulate her hand-eye-brain coordination by letting her practice writing and typing.

Sadly, insurance will not cover apps for an iPad, despite doctor recommendations and proven successes.  (http://tactustherapy.com/scientific-evidence-research-ipad-apps-work-aphasia-therapy/ )

We have kicked in a few hundred dollars so far, but these apps are not the usual price we're used to for iPad apps!  Yikes!  

Thanks for helping Pat regain her life!