Our permanent home for Amara

My name is Chenoa Chalker, and I come from a beautiful, small family here in upstate NY.  This is my 12 year old sister, Amara. 

Amara is a little girl like no other. She's lively, sarcastic, smart... and stronger than any little girl should ever have needed to be. But that's what makes her so uniquely her. 

You see, my mother and sister died during her birth. With nothing short of a miracle, they lived. (Sheer stubborness certainly can do alot sometimes!) Amara's heart stopped while my mother was in labor. The placenta abrupted, which we were told was just about the statistical equivalent of being struck by lightning. Her brain was anoxic for ten minutes. And Amara suffered a specific TBI (traumatic brain injury) known as a Hypoxic Ischemic Encephalopathy, because of this. This scrambled all the pathways in her newly formed little brain. This came with all sorts of crazy consequences.

Amara has severe spastic tetraplegic cerebal palsy, and she is cortically blind. She has severe gastro-esophogeal reflux disease, severe asthma, and recurrent pneumonia. She is dysphagic and must be suctioned and fed through a g-tube. She doesn't grow properly due to her CP and recurrent infections. She is currently in a wheelchair (until she talks our father into buying the rocket chair she really wants.) And by the time she was six years old, she had been hospitalized between forty and fifty times. (We lost count after two dozen) My parents sleep in shifts to care for her as she requires 24 hr care and 100% assistance with daily living activities -and that's when things are going well. In order to attend school, she is accompanied by a nurse. Through it all, she alone has kept the best attitude of anyone, though. I could never have asked for a better little sister to come into my life, and steal my heart away.

With all the accompanying problems we have run into because of her specific disabilities, our home simply became a place that did not work for our, or more specifically HER needs. Slowly, we began modifying and adapting our home to suit her. Her bedroom is downstairs, and easily accesible. We had a wheelchair ramp installed,  readily on hand for all those long walks she insists on taking. Our bathroom was adapted to include an adaptive walk-in tub. Most recently, we had a stair glide put in so she can access the bathroom which is on our second floor. (It's hard to carry 70lbs up a flight of stairs!)

But unfortunately, my parents have run into hard times financially.  And our home, the place my sister and I have grown up in, the loving home we have adapted to suit her needs BEST is now in danger of forclosure. My father is an out of work, disabled veteran. My mother a full-time caretaker to my sister. Two wonderful HARDWORKING people, who fell onto financial trouble. But as the bills stack up, the time is growing shorter to help them.  And if they lose this home, there is a great chance they would lose my sister too. Without a place adapted to care for her, how exactly could they care for her? 

I am raising this money to pay off the money owed, and to help them continue to make the repairs needed to keep our beautiful house, a loving, HOME. A place my sister can permanently live in, be loved in, and be cared for PROPERLY.

Thankyou,
the big sister, Chenoa.