Help support our friend, Liz Milvy Diaz

Until her nightmare accident one Friday night in August, Liz was leading an exemplary life – attentive mother of four, grandmother of 12, dear friend of so many. Socially active in her retirement from nurse-midwifery, she was working with immigrant groups both in her home state, Rhode Island, and on the border in Texas. She sang in the North Kingstown, RI Chorus. Then, in a moment, her life was changed completely by a fall. Liz had been cooking dinner and then felt a wave of dizziness. She sat down at the kitchen table but realizing that her food might burn, she stood up to turn off the stove and blacked out. In a home nightmare, her fall broke her neck. Paralyzed, she came to consciousness in immense pain, unable to move for the next ten hours. Finally, in the morning, a neighbor heard her screams. She was taken to Rhode Island Hospital with a fracture of her cervical spine. After surgery to stabilize her injury and about a week there, she was transferred to Gaylord Rehabilitation Hospital in Connecticut. The danger of the Corona virus in local nursing homes led her and her family to decide that she should return home after it had been renovated enough to accommodate her needs. Liz has central spinal cord syndrome. Her physical capacity is severely limited from her neck down. Although she is working amazingly hard at her physical therapy, she is greatly disabled and in pain. As a quadriplegic she needs help eating, dressing, turning in bed and transferring to her wheelchair, as well as with the innumerable other tasks that abled people take for granted. Her family has been there for her, throughout, but they have children, partners and careers of their own that need attention and Liz currently needs care 24/7. In this time of general hardship, Liz is very reluctant to ask for aid. However, the costs of the home renovations which have exceeded $38,000 thus far, medical devices to help her exist, nursing and home-aid coverage which itself will come to about $200,000 a year make it utterly impossible for her to manage without our help. Our aim is to raise the $200,000 necessary to cover some of these costs over the next year as she gradually recovers. Liz is a wonderful person with a great heart, who, in her career and after retirement, has contributed greatly to the betterment of our world. Please help us give back to her, to aid her healing and to meet the goal.