My wonderful 85 year old mom, Mary, had a stroke the day after her TAVR procedure on January 19th last year. As I was driving her home from her procedure she started slurring her words and not making much sense and I took her back to the emergency room at the same hospital she had just left. They didn’t give her stroke medicine even though she was there within the very first hour of a stroke. They had sent her home with internal bleeding from the TAVR. I was told she would “bleed out” if the stroke medicine was given.

Mom ended up in the hospital for 39 days. I spent 10 hours a day at the hospital with her and any other remaining hours of the day on the phone with her insurance company, case workers, and attempting to track down her hospital doctors to get them to pay attention. The main doctor in charge of her care was popping in and out for 30 seconds a day before visiting hrs. Mom referred to him as “motorcycle man” as he wore a leather jacket and zoomed through so quickly.

I saw some horrific things go on at the hospital. They kept putting her on multiple blood thinners that ended up with her needing three blood transfusions over 2 weeks. There were also caring and excellent nurses and therapists who stood up to the negligence of the hospital drs. And we also experienced many miracles. At one point, Mom wasn’t eating, speaking, or even knowing who I was and was a day away from being on a feeding tube. I was telling her, “You have to start speaking tomorrow or they may put a tube in you.” The next day, with me in the room, her speech therapist was assessing her condition. Suddenly, mom went from silent to talking up a storm about her childhood! When I asked, “Mom, do you know who I am?” “Of course I do!” she proclaimed loudly. Her speech therapist laughed with me. She was allowed to eat and could speak again.

After 30 long and difficult days, the medical group, Regal, approved her on a Friday afternoon—only to reverse their decision and deny her admission to acute stroke rehabilitation later that same evening. We appealed Regal’s denial with her insurance company. Over the next week, her physical therapists, normally missing hospital doctor, case worker from rehab, and I all called the insurance company doctor who was to decide the appeal. The next Friday, at 5:55pm, Mom was finally approved to go to Encompass Health Rehabilitation in Tustin!

Having gone from “hospital hell” to “rehab heaven”, just five days into rehab, the medical group was now refusing to grant her the 12 requested days the facility determined she needed. With the help of a senior Medicare supervisor, we switched her insurance from Medicare Advantage to traditional Medicare at midnight the final day of February. Our second insurance change in 3 weeks! The supervisor told me, “This is the craziest thing I have ever done here, I hope this works.” Miraculously, it did. Mom was granted an additional 14 days of life-changing rehabilitation.

At Encompass, mom worked hard every day! They had her up at 7:30am each morning. She did three hours of physical, occupational, and speech therapy a day. They helped her regain the ability to realize when she needed to use the bathroom. She went from not walking more than a step to walking over 250 feet a day with a walker.

Mom came home nearly 2 months post stroke, with a c diff infection, colitis, anemia, gi bleeding, and a very weak right leg, arm, and hand. I was determined she would not be going back into any emergency rooms or hospitals. Over the span of a year of me taking care of her as well as five new doctors, her Hemoglobin stabilized. Her gi system healed.

She is so much better now. She understands most things and is getting much stronger. But she still needs a lot of help.

I need to get back to in person vocal coaching to provide for us. We have gone through our savings and have accumulated debt. She needs home caregivers. We have unpaid medical copays from rehab. We may need to use some of the money to help pay bills as we go through this transition.

We are grateful for any help given. Please consider clicking on the GoFundMe share button to share to your friends or social network. This has been a challenging time in our lives and we have learned a lot about faith. Faith in Life, and in ourselves. My mom is an extraordinary woman and I am so proud of her for all the effort she has put into restoring her mind and body. For those of you who don’t know her, I hope you will get the chance to meet her some time. She was still working part time at 84 before the stroke as a counselor/therapist (for people with very difficult physical and emotional issues). She spent a lifetime helping others and now she needs some help.