Help Evey Lu Rebuild Her Life

It is with a very heavy heart and a spinning head that I tell you that our beautiful 17 year old daughter Evey Lu Laux has just been in a tragic automobile accident. She was visiting with a friend in Nebraska, talked him into letting her drive his truck and lost control after over correcting and subsequently rolling it. Her friend was thrown from the vehicle and walked away with minor scratches, Evelyn was thrown into the backseat and pinned in a twisted position until the amazing rescue workers were able to remove her from the vehicle using the jaws of life. We will be off work for weeks, and will be in Nebraska paying for lodging until they allow us to transfer her closer to home. Thank the Lord that she is alive, but we are sad to say she is going to be paralyzed for the rest of her life.

After 5 hours, the neurosurgeon was able to successfully fuse her mangled spine back together. The spinal cord however was severed so all function for bowel, bladder, sensation, and movement below her belly button has ceased.

The first thing my daughter said to me was I am so sorry. The next comment was I will never be able to play softball, ride a horse, or be a veterinary surgeon. We are doing everything possible to encourage her and give her positive things to look forward to.

We are just starting to learn the gravity of the financial burden that this will bring. We will have to adjust our careers and decrease income as well as increase expenditures to provide for her and her care. We will need to remodel the bathroom to make it wheelchair accessible, install ramps near the entry ways, get a hoyer lift to get her from bed to chair, stair lifts, shower chair, wheelchairs of different types, ulcer prevention products, air mattresses to help her roll independently, hospital style bed, van with ramp and many more items that I can’t even imagine at this stage. We have been told that she will be in rehab for a few months and require in home care until we can all learn do care for her ourselves. Evelyn will have to learn how to be independent, but this may require several years of assistance before that can happen.

It is not in our nature to ask for handouts so this is very hard for me to post but many of the medical professionals that been involved in Evey’s care really encouraged us to set this page up. I don’t really understand fully what we will be up against but any help at all would be greatly appreciated.