Support Marina's Recovery

If you've ever met Marina Ganetsky, you know that she is warm, funny, kind, brilliant, and daring. On December 15, 2020, she left for school on an ordinary day, and collapsed on the playground. A ruptured blood vessel in her brain led to life-threatening bleeding. She almost died that day, requiring emergency surgery to relieve the pressure on her brain. The following day, she underwent embolization and craniotomy to prevent further bleeding and to relieve the pressure around her brain. The bleeding damaged the occipital lobe, but the increased pressure caused strokes of her thalamus and basal ganglia, deeper brain structures important for thinking and movement.

Marina spent several rocky weeks in a medically induced coma, and eventually awoke and was taken off the ventilator. However, the strokes left her with significant deficits. She will need to again learn how to control her arms and legs, sit, stand, eat and talk.   

After 6 weeks in the ICU, Marina was transferred to Spaulding Rehab on January 25, 2021. She has a lot of work ahead of her, and we expect the recovery to take months, if not longer.  

Marina is an awesome kid who loves to play with her school and neighborhood friends, sing, dance, ski, snowboard, play field hockey and to spend time with her family and dog. We know that she is in there, and she is already making small steps towards recovery.

One of the impending challenges is that insurance will dictate her length of inpatient rehab. If Mike and Sasha want to extend that level of care, the cost will be thousands of dollars per day. So many people have asked how they could help the Ganetsky family during this time. We are therefore raising funds to pay for extended inpatient rehab, as well as her care and continued therapy when she eventually comes home.