Stephanie's Healing: Your Support Needed after a Brain Bleed

While my family is never one to ask for help like this, we are unfortunately going through the unimaginable. My aunt Stephanie has been fighting for her life the past couple of weeks and is now fighting to hopefully make it out of the hospital and move on to rehab after a severely traumatic brain bleed at Cooper Hospital in the ICU.

My aunt was very much unknowingly born with AVM Malformation. AVM is when your vessels and veins are twisted in the back of your brain and one day can just rupture and cause massive brain bleeds. My aunt is 49 years old, so living with this for 49 years and then all of a sudden rupturing is crazy. She has undergone multiple surgeries and procedures at this point to stop the bleeding, remove part of her skull, drain her brain, and is now undergoing procedures such as a trach placement and feeding tube to help her breathe, which is a big concern at the moment.

My aunt Stephanie also has to undergo CT scans once, if not twice, a day and lots of other scans and x-rays.

Praying that she shows well enough signs to eventually leave the hospital, she will then have to go to a neuro rehab to gain strength back, learn to breathe fully on her own again, speak again, etc.

If you don’t already know my aunt, then let me tell you a little about her. She's an extremely independent, private, strong, caring, hardworking woman, and I don’t say that lightly. She’s a massive animal lover (hence her job at the animal shelter) and always willing to save an animal's life, rescue, foster, TNR, you name it. She has a huge love for nature and our environment, and she’s always willing to give a hand wherever needed; all while doing the best she can in her own life.

Now, like I said in the beginning, my family never asks for handouts from anyone; if anything, we are always trying to just help others. This time is a little different. We’ve been taking 2-hour total trips to the hospital every single day to see my aunt, making her our main priority every day. She means the absolute world to us, and that is why I’m asking for a little help. She’s 100% going to need help paying for medical bills and rehab to hopefully one day later down the line get back to a somewhat normal life (praying).

I say this from the bottom of my heart, thank you. I’m so incredibly grateful she’s still here with us, and now we just need her to focus on healing and not stressing about how this might take a massive toll on her life.

With a tremendous amount of love and thanks,

Her sister Melissa, Brother in-law Ron and her nieces Brittany and Savannah