Nick Cabrera’s 24-Hour Home Care

For more than a month, our oldest brother Nick Cabrera has been hospitalized with two strokes and heart failure. The husband and father of four is paralyzed from the neck down and can’t speak. He can only communicate with his eyes.

Since he is not quite ready for a rehab facility, he will be discharged from the hospital in the coming week and transition to 24-hour home care with limited professional assistance covered by insurance. This means his wife Arlene and our parents will be his main caretakers, doing everything from crushing his medicine and inserting it through a tube, feeding him, turning him every couple of hours, and lifting him out of a hospital bed with a hoyer lift and placing him in a wheelchair. This new reality will all happen at home while trying to continue the normal routine with their kids.

We are calling on all of our Ohana, friends, classmates, churches, co-workers, villages and networks to help him heal and recover in the best way possible, considering the circumstances.

IMMEDIATE EXPENSES:

Insurance covers 3 medical professionals coming to the home once or twice a week for 30 minutes to an hour. This includes a nurse, a physical therapist and occupational therapist.

Since it will be an intense transition, the family is hoping to get extra help in the first month or two. In a dream world, they could use a professional caregiver around the clock, but we know it will add up. We appreciate any form of care you can help with!

Home Care Nurse:

$25-35 = 1 hour of care

$200-280 = 8 hours of care

$600-840 = 1 day of care

$4,200-5,880 = 1 week of care

Other Care Costs:

-Extra visits with Physical & Occupational Therapists

-Medical Costs out of pocket: $7k/year

-Eye gaze device: $3k

-Medical equipment for home

BACKSTORY:

Nick was first hospitalized on 10/27/23 when doctors determined he had his first stroke in the brain stem (pons area). This paralyzed his left side and he had slurred speech. While at the hospital, doctors discovered Nick’s heart was weak, so they put four stents in his heart on 10/30/23. Within a week, on 11/4/23, Nick had a second stroke in the same area of the brain stem. It was an extension of the first stroke, but on the other side of the pons, which is the part of the brainstem that controls swallowing/speech & mobility. Nick is currently immobile from the neck down. As of right now, he is only able to communicate with his eyes through blinks. We thank God the strokes did not affect him cognitively!

The financial outlook could be catastrophic. There’s the immediate expenses that are more obvious, but in the long run, there’s the potential loss of future income and a need for permanent home renovations and a wheelchair accessible van for the family. To donate directly, send a message through this account or to someone you know in the family.

The American Stroke Association estimates that the average lifetime cost of a stroke is $140,000, however we can only guess how much the family will really need. We want to lift that burden as much as we can. The burden of care is already so heavy so we want to start now so that Nick, Arlene, and their four kids (15, 13, 11 and 9) can focus on recovery.