Hi, my name is Ashlee — I’m the daughter of Susy Ploughman. As most of you may or may not know, on July 23rd our Mom suffered from a stroke whilst on her way back from a birthday weekend getaway with her husband Ray. Mom was transferred to Belleville Hospital where they discovered a bloodclot on her brain. Due to lack of equipment for surgery Mom was rushed to Kingston Hospital where she would undergo surgery to stop the bloodclot from running its course even further. Two days post surgery Mom started declining rapidly — in turn we discovered that during her initial surgery a blood vessel in her brain was perforated by the surgeon which resulted in a very serious brain bleed on mom’s left side. On Tuesday July 25th mom was rushed into an emergency surgery to preform a left side craniotomy to control the excessive swelling in her brain. This surgery was lengthy in time — 5 hours. My family and I impatiently waited to hear better news of her coming out of surgery healthier than when she went into the procedure. Mom spent the next 14 days in the ICU on life support to allow her body to heal from the injury. Those were the hardest 2 weeks our family had to endure, but we gathered together and held each other tight each day praying that Mom would recover. If anyone knows my mom they know she will fight until the end without anything getting in her way.

After 14 days in the ICU my mom woke up, unable to speak or move the right side of her body she was able to answer simple yes and no questions. Kingston Hospital deemed her well enough to join the Stroke Rehabilitation Program at Lakeridge Health in Oshawa. We were all so grateful that mom would be closer to her support systems being that of her family, and friends.

Shortly after she was transferred to the program in Oshawa we recognized that her right leg was beginning to enlarge and swell. It was brought to the medical teams attention where they discovered a bloodclot in her leg. They began mom on blood thinners to control the clot from traveling to her heart and lungs. Two days later, Mom then began declining cognitively. She became unresponsive

to her yes and no questions, and would sleep for hours on end. Our family came together yet again, and advocated for a CT scan to possibly rule out any sort of issues. Unfortunately there was another road block: Mom had a brain bleed on the right side. We all met together with a team of medical experts to have Mom transferred to TORONTO Western Hospital to undergo a right side craniotomy to stop the bleeding. This surgery was successful to put a halt on the bleed in her brain.

Because of the countless roadblocks my mom has had to face we weren’t sure what recovery would look like for mom moving forward and into the future. Once she had healed enough at Toronto Western she was transferred back to the Stroke Unit at Lakeridge Health where she remains in the rehab program.

Currently mom faces challenges with communication, overall cognitive skills, emotions/expressions, and physically is still unable to walk. Over the course of the last 3 weeks mom has shown improvements in all of these departments but at a slow rate, which is to be expected. My step dad Ray has worked extremely hard with the medical teams, and my mom to support her through these challenging times as well as be there for kids, being myself, my sister Jill, and my brother Wyatt. We are so thankful for his endless support and underlying love for our Mom.

As time passes there are pressures from the hospital to have my mom released back home. Unfortunately due to the extreme expensives for hospital equipment (hospital bed, lifts, chairs, PSWs, Speech Therapists, etc) it is difficult for our stepfather and us as her kids to do this all on our own.

We want our mom to live as comfortably as possible during this tough time however there is a lot that she will need to support her new life. As most of you who know my mom Susy she would go to the end of the earth for her family and friends to support them through any challenges they faced and would do anything for us kids. Mom is a selfless, loving, caring and human who I hope to be like one day. We all miss her terribly and hope that with enough rehab and therapy that we will get pieces of her back again, as we all wish and pray for.

Mom is our Warrior Woman, and a god damn survivor. ❤️