Hi everyone, my name is Lena and I'm fundraising for my sister Mau. If you know my sister, then you know she's very private about her life, but with her consent, she's allowing us to share her current reality.

On August 3rd, Mau suffered a spinal stroke during back surgery. A Spinal Cord Injury (SCI) is an injury that affects the spinal cord, a bundle of nerves that is part of the central nervous system, that transmits signals from the brain to the rest of the body. Injury or damage to the spinal cord may impact sensory, motor, and reflexes below the injury site. Mau's SCI caused paralysis of the legs and lower body.

The phone call from her neurosurgeon advising us of the spinal stroke was devastating, but instead of me comforting her when we got to see her in ICU post surgery; Mau comforted us by saying, "the first thing I thought when I opened my eyes was thank God, I'm alive!" And yes, we thank God every day too!!

She was in an acute rehab facility for physical and occupational therapy, working on her upper body strength and learning to do every day things in a different way. The healing journey will be a long and slow process, but we are encouraged with the small signs of improvement.

With that being said, the goal of this GoFundMe is to provide financial support for help with items that health insurance doesn't cover, i.e. ramps for the house (safety at home is priority), medical supplies for home heath care. Outpatient physical therapy (insurance covers a certain # of visits). There is a facility in Carlsbad called Adapt Functional Movement Center, they specialize in spinal cord injuries. At Adapt they implement an array of techniques emphasizing repetition driven sensory & movement strategies in order to re-establish patterned neural activity through the nervous system. Unfortunately, this isn't covered by insurance. All funds raised will go towards her medical and healing needs.

Our goal at the end of the day is to help Mau get back to daily life, whatever her "new normal" may be, we will work through it one day at a time.

If preferred, donations can be made directly to Mau via Zelle and/or PayPal, please contact me for info.

We appreciate any donations and shares made on her behalf.