Urgent Help for Melissa's Immediate Health Care Needs

We are a small group of former classmates/friends of Melissa Dellamarggio, and we are desperately hoping to raise some immediate emergency medical care funds for Melissa, who is currently experiencing a deeply concerning health crisis. Melissa has had Multiple Sclerosis (MS) for years now, and it has slowly made walking and other motor coordination difficult for her. Earlier this summer, she experienced an MS flair-up that caused her to not be able to walk, and she entered rehab to regain the ability to walk. At that time, her bedridden mom, Priscilla, joined her in the nursing home while Melissa convalesced.

Rehab DID help and Melissa was walking again, but more recently, Priscilla started to decline and eventually passed on Oct 12th. Priscilla's decline led to a pause in Melissa's rehab and her walking progress quickly regressed. She is currently once again unable to walk. Priscilla's passing occurred 9 days before Melissa was slated to return home, as she was approaching the max stay that Medicare would pay for of 120 days. Because of the reversal of her rehab progress, she was NOT ready to go home...but was forced to or else pay out of pocket for her nursing care, which she could not do.

Melissa needs rehab again to hope to be able to walk again. But more immediately, as long as she cannot walk, she needs basic care. She is bedridden, and needs assistance for EVERYTHING. She cannot walk to the bathroom, cannot get herself food, and her MS makes even opening pill bottles a challenge, so she needs assistance to take her meds, and many other things...but she is living alone and her siblings don't live close. Private duty CNA's or Home Health Aides cost around $30/hr, and are hard to come by, but she needs someone to be by her side RIGHT NOW. She'll need Home Health Aides to come in 2-3x/day, 7 days/week, until she can return to rehab. Medicare will pay again for rehab after another 120 days of her being out of rehab have passed. The amount we're trying to raise would roughly cover the out-of-pocket cost of Home Health Aides to come to her house for the next 120 days.

Melissa has applied for assistance from the state, and we are also trying to turn over other stones to find assistance in other places and from other organizations and sources, but if there IS anything out there that might help, it likely will take a while to be forthcoming, and meanwhile she needs help RIGHT THIS SECOND.

We're asking that those of you that know Melissa--friends, family, old classmates--please see this dire circumstance that Missy is in, and find it in your heart to give, and give deeply. You will be helping someone with a kind heart who has had a lot of hard blows from life recently. You'll literally be saving a life. Thanks so much for reading this far, and for your anticipated and much-needed generosity.