Sadie Isabella Skolnekovich Medical Expenses

Hello!! My name is Darla Skolnekovich. Ours is a very long name. If you are attempting to pronounce it in your head...please do not be discouraged...ha.

I am creating a gofundme fundraiser for my beloved daughter, Sadie Isabella.

Our Sadie has been through a VAST and colorful spectrum of health-related nonsense over the last decade and we are asking for your help.

OOF, my girl.

The evening before her sweet 16th, in the summer of 2013, Sadie was in a nearly fatal jetski accident. Over the next 6 years, she endured 14 surgeries to treat numerous terrible injuries, including 2 "crush" broken bones in her neck, a shattered jaw, a badly dislocated broken shoulder, as well as a profound concussion that required 3 days in an induced coma.

It was a miracle that she lived and we are forever on our knees with Gratitude.

The stress and financial requirements were ruinous.

In 2017, during her sophomore year at CU-Boulder, Sadie developed a devastating seizure disorder that progressed quickly and had terrible consequences. Sadie has suffered significant and permanent memory loss and intense uncontrollable nausea that requires hospitalization and can last for weeks following each epileptic episode.

These severe seizures occurred a few times a month for years. Because Sadie was so severely affected by these events, I, and often my wonderful husband, John, as well, stayed in the hospital with her for many days to weeks at a time. John is our sole earner as I take care of our daughter.

Medications, with many side effects, have controlled these grand mal seizures for the most part, but Sadie has epileptic events every day that cause her enormous pain.

I don’t know how we have gotten through any of this…btw…feels like a hazy dream, but all true.

Obviously, every penny we had been able to save over a lifetime of work is well and long gone to provide for the requirements related to our daughter’s health.

Sadie has tried very hard to stay in school despite her health challenges, but after so many grand mal episodes, that left her memory, body and mind shattered, she was forced to withdraw from the university, where she was studying to be a middle school English and Trades teacher. (Yikes and Bless her true heart.)

Sadie has been deeply injured, disheartened and depressed by not being able to stay in school and tried many times to keep even a part-time job, but was "let go" repeatedly following an epileptic event. She remains unable to work, which is quite unbearable for her.

My girl is a worker.

Sadie was continually misdiagnosed and dismissed from the start, after enduring repeated, extensive and torturous testing by several neurological institutions within her insurance network throughout Colorado.

The toll on my Sadie and our entire family, including her loving kind brother, Sam and her amazingly strong patient and brilliant partner, Mitch, cannot be overstated. The unfathomable trauma and pain of this “limbo” for more than 10 years in a 25 year life, has been very nearly impossible to survive.

Her strength is superhuman to me. She remains positive and kind and generous and so loving.

She is a warrior and my hero.

Finally, in November, 2022, my wonderful, crazy hard-working husband, John, and I, sold the few and modest assets we still had in order to take Sadie to the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, MN. She was diagnosed promptly with “bi-lateral focal epilepsy”. The expense was crippling.

Because of financial and insurance restraints, we are forced to again work with Colorado health institutions. However, they are now working with Sadie’s doctors at the Mayo Clinic and with the correct diagnosis, Sadie is now preparing for brain surgery, hopefully this fall. (Yikes again.)

Meanwhile, my John is working himself to death to provide for the essentials of our household, Sadie’s bare medical and living expenses plus other considerable expenses as well.

His health is crumbling after almost 40 years in construction and I feel absolutely helpless.

We are all very hard workers. We will recover. We have and will again “pay it forward.”

I am asking for your help to get us through this last crucial, super brutal bit toward Sadie’s hard fought freedom.

Thank you for your time and love from us, The Skols