Kaspar, Paralyzed by a Tick - There is still HOPE!

Kaspar is 39 years old and lives in Saaremaa, Estonia. He has two young sons (10 years and 4 years old) and has owned and operated a small delivery business for 8 years.

Tragically, on Friday morning, the 5th of August 2022, his life changed overnight.

Kaspar was moving his family into their new home, and during that week, he awoke from his sleep and could not move parts of his body.

Kaspar was taken to a public hospital and placed in an induced coma due to being diagnosed with TBE encephalitis from being bitten by a tick. The bite caused inflammation in his brain and severe damage to his normal bodily functions. He could not be woken from the coma even with the assistance of the medical staff.

Four weeks after Kaspar was induced, he slowly awoke to discover most of his body was paralyzed, and he had lost his ability to breathe on his own. Fortunately, his memory was completely intact, along with his ability to speak and connect with his family, and of course, his humor too.

During the following months, Kaspar was able to receive daily rehabilitation from a masseur, and physiotherapist along with medication thanks to the National Health Insurance. Due to this, Kaspar has been showing signs of improvement (breathing, swallowing some water every day, and lifting his hips).

During his rehabilitation provided by the hospital, Kaspar was moved to a portable machine where he managed to improve his breathing capacity. Unfortunately, this progress was very short due to this portable machine malfunctioning/breaking down after only two weeks of use. The hospital had to resort to putting Kaspar on the first machine due to a lack of resources in the hospital; stopping his ability to improve his breathing.

This was a turning point, which impacted his mental health. It took one month before Kaspar could get access to a better-suited machine again, but the doctors have been reluctant to reprogram it as it is until today sitting next to his bed for weeks now and is not connected to Kaspar despite being operational again. All these circumstances along with the regression in his progress have caused his motivation to fluctuate.

Another event that took a toll on Kaspar’s mental health, was that the doctors decided to move him to their Nursery Ward with little notice or opportunity for Kaspar or his family to object. The doctor’s focus shifted away from actively attempting to achieve rehabilitation to passively monitoring him without a focus on rehabilitation.

Kaspar is now receiving very few doctor visits and consistent physical therapy (which fund is about to run out) from the hospital.

Unfortunately, other public hospitals, that have rehabilitation centers and the proper equipment, won’t accept transfer requests for ‘paralyzed’ patients who cannot breathe on their own. This has left Kaspar and his family without any public healthcare options and with less than adequate care.

However, there is still hope…

Up to this point, Kaspar’s family, sisters, brothers, and parents have been putting in as much effort and money as possible, but they need more help to get the proper care and rehabilitation support Kaspar needs.

Research says “The recovery process may take months to even years. Intensive rehabilitation, involving specialists in neurology, occupational therapy, speech and language therapy, nutrition and neuropsychology, can help patients make the best possible recovery” (John Hopkin’s Medicine (2023), Encephalitis).

This is what we want for Kaspar, intensive rehabilitation to make the best possible recovery.

This is where you come in!

Kaspar is motivated to improve, and through his own initiative, physio, and the encouragement of his family, he has started to make more progress. For several days, Kaspar focused his attention on his feet and was able to start moving them again slightly

( Link to Video of his progress ). With your support and Kaspar’s determination, we will see this hard-working family man finally move into his new home.

The funds from this campaign will go toward these specific areas:

Any donation from you would help Kaspar and us, if you cannot support us with payment, we would appreciate you sharing this more than you know. Thank you so much for all your support and for sharing this post. It will go a long way to see Kaspar walk back into his home with his family.

I am creating this Gofundme for my brother, and I am taking the responsibility to collect the funds and then send all funds raised to him for the areas mentioned above.

If anyone has any information that can help Kaspar’s recovery process, please contact his family through this fund.

Kindly Note: Fundraiser is in AUD, if you are aiming for a certain amount in a different currency, please be wary of that as AUD is much less than USD and EURO.

1.00 AUD = 0.66 USD

1.00 AUD = 0.62 EURO

To Convert:

https://www.xe.com/currencyconverter/

Much Much love!