Many of you may or may not know my nephew Drew Hernandez and his parents, Laura & Andrew Hernandez. Drew recently relocated to Seattle, Washington. During a trip home to Minnesota a few weeks ago, he incurred a serious snowboarding accident. At first, he thought it was just a minor concussion, but as time passed, he started having major headaches and spent the entire trip resting and not feeling good.

Drew returned to Seattle and his symptoms became even worse with blurred vision and disorientation. He went to urgent care and a CT scan revealed a Subdural Hematoma (bleeding with building pressure between his brain and outer covering/skull). With this information, he was immediately moved to Harborview Trauma Hospital for immediate surgery. A few days later, after they removed the drain from his brain, he started to become disoriented and started losing feeling in his left side. After another CT scan, they found that the bleeding had returned, and the brain was being pushed to the left side from swelling. This meant a second immediate surgery was necessary. Unfortunately, because of the severity of these types of surgeries, the medical team felt it was best not to replace a portion of his skull that was removed during surgery. This is a precaution in case a third entry is required to allow the swelling to go down. On day 11, Drew finally left the hospital and is now recovering at home and awaits his 3rd surgery in the next 8-12 weeks to put his skull back in place, which will entail another 8-12 weeks of recovery.

This event has certainly tested our family with high levels of stress and concerns as these surgeries took place. Adding to his parents' stress, they discovered additional and challenging living circumstances for Drew. Along with his new relocation, Drew's new career as a supervisor for kitchen, dining, and catering at a nursing home will not provide FMLA or short-term disability because he does not have enough working time at this facility.

My wish is to lessen Drew and his parents' burdens so they can concentrate on healing and not stress about the incurring debt from loss of work and pending medical bills as he navigates through his long journey to a full recovery.

We appreciate all your thoughts and prayers for continued healing .

Thank you so much.