I'm not here for me. I am here for Stacy. Let me tell you her story. Stacy is a single mother of a 5 year old. Stacy became a single parent when her baby's father tried to kill the two of them. Surviving that, she also survived being a drug addict and prostitute to pay for her habit. She's been straight for 7 years now. Stacy was a vibrant and lively 35 year old until the beginning of March. Stacy began having pain near her stomach on her abdomen and thought it was her reflux disease. She went to her regular doctor and he wanted to do some testing. She has no insurance and makes minimum wage. She could not afford the testing. He told her if she continued to experience the pain or started a fever to go to the ER. That night, she ran a fever so she went to the ER in our town. The ER there had no bed available so they sent her by ambulance to the nearest large city here, which was 32 miles away. The ER doctor there diagnosed her as having gallstones and an infection in the gallbladder. He admitted her for emergency surgery, which didn't take place until about 24 hours later as she was not a scheduled surgery, she had to wait.

Stacy received her surgery and was released from the hospital the next day. Stacy continued the fever and the pain continued. Two days later, she returned to the first ER. Again, that ER sent her back to the hospital where she had the surgery. While there, she began having difficulties breathing so they put her on a respirator and when she was fighting that, put her into a drug induced coma. Suddenly, her kidneys began to shut down. Her lungs began to harden and her family was told to remain close to the hospital for the next 72 hours. The doctors didn't believe she would survive this. She survived those 72 hours. She remained in a coma. The doctors could not find the source of infection. If the gallbladder was infected, removing it would have removed the infection. Stacy barely hung onto life. The machines were doing their job. One day, Stacy was able to come off of the dialysis machine. The next day, they began lowering the saturation of the respirator. She eventually got down to 6 % saturation. Her lungs were mostly working again on their own. The hospital was pumping so many antibiotics into her, but still her infection raged on. Then they found the source of the infection..her appendix had burst. Too weak to have surgery, all they could do was pump the infection out of her abdomen and keep the antibiotics running. The hospital decided it was time to let Stacy wake up after they performed a tracheotomy. Stacy seemed to not want to wake up. She would open her eyes periodically, focus on nothing at all and close them again. She was not moving much. As she got a bit stronger, she began to kick her left leg as if in frustration. We all hoped she was frustrated at not being able to talk because of the trach..she so loves to talk! But that was not it. The latest news we received was that while in that coma, Stacy suffered a major stroke and is paralyzed on her entire right side. She is also blind in her left eye. The doctors say she will never walk or talk again!

Stacy will spend months in hospital. She will undergo an MRI when she can be taken off the respirator completely to see what damage has been done to her brain. She will begin therapy when she is more aware. She is barely aware as it is. She has been in the ICU battling this since March 9th. Her first surgery was shortly after March 1st.

Her family's reaction to the latest news was to decide to turn a screened in porch to a bedroom for Stacy. I thought that was great news! Stacy will need to be cared for for the rest of her life. I also thought it was a great solution for her daughter but recently I found out that they intend to send Stacy's daughter to live with relatives not close to Stacy. I know Stacy is fighting as hard as she is to survive all of this to be with her child. Her child is her life. She will not be able to tell her family she does not want her daughter away from her. Her family is thinking of themselves at this point.

Stacy needs to be able to live with her daughter. She needs 24 hour care, but her daughter needs to be with her just as much. If anybody has any information on any charities or grants that an individual can apply for, or if anybody has any ideas, please let me know. I feel it is possible for Stacy to have her own place with her daughter as long as someone lives with them to take care of the two of them but that will cost a lot of money to set a place up for wheelchair accessability, moving Stacy from bed to chair and to tub, etc. Moving Stacy out of the house to anyplace else let alone, caregiver for both Stacy and her daughter.

The family is applying for SSD for Stacy next week, but I think we all know that SSD doesn't pay well enough for Stacy's future needs. This is Stacy and her 5 year old daughter taken this past Christmas. I cannot show you pictures of Stacy right now as I am not allowed to take any in ICU. I will add post pictures as soon as I am able.

Please help.