Lacey's Continued Recovery and Rehabilitation

If you are reading this, then Lacey has impacted your life in a positive way. Or maybe you are one of the few that only know me, her husband, but you KNOW how much she has impacted MY life in a positive way. But either way, you are here because of the most amazing person on the planet, and the horrible situation she has been forced to endure.

Lacey was hit by a large truck in a devastating accident on November 21st, 2022 while she was working and driving to offices that she called on. Surviving that was the first step of the longest and most difficult path we could ever imagine.

My... person, the love of my life, my amazing wife was now fighting to stay alive, and it was the hardest fight one could imagine. Lacey was in the ICU for 22 days, with a shattered skull, fractured neck in 2 vertebrates, 3 fractured ribs, a collapsed lung, a broken cheek bone/maxillary sinus, a broken termporal bone, a damaged spleen, paralysis on her right side, and was completely unresponsive for over a week.

After fighting the ICU for 22 days, we were discharged to Acute care, and then Long Term Acute care, and then In-patient rehab, and then Post-Acute Brain Injury rehab, and then in-home rehab, which we are still doing today, over 6 months later. And while 6 months seems like a long time, it is also unfortunately the earliest stages of her rehabilitation. The silver lining is that she has so much more recovery ahead of her, the downside is that she will be doing it in some form or another... forever.

A GoFundMe and Meal-Train were setup for us very early on and... I cannot express how much they helped us through the early stages of this disaster. They kept us fed and allowed me to focus on Lacey and not worry about little things in the most critical times. If you gave to either of those, know that we appreciate it more than we can express, and also know that you have NO obligation to give anything else to us at all. I am setting up THIS GoFundMe after the 6-month mark, as it is starting to become more clear what costs we have waiting for us down the road, and I will do whatever I can to get Lacey all the help she needs and deserves, and part of that is putting down my ego and asking for help. If you know me, you know that asking for help is something that I try to avoid, probably to a flaw. But its for the love of my life, so I will not let myself get in the way of getting more help for her. There are many things in the medical world that are unfortunately considered "not necessary" for LIFE, so they are not covered by insurance. The two biggest ones are advanced speech therapy and vision therapy. Lacey has Homonymous hemianopia, which is a field-cut of her vision, allowing her to only see out of the left side of each eye. Her right side is completely blind in both eyes, and her left eye is still weak. So, she often has double vision, forcing her to close her left eye, resulting in half of her right eye as her only eyesight. She also has Broca's Aphasia and Apraxia of Speech, which makes communication very difficult for her most of the time. She is improving constantly at her language, but if you know Lacey, you know that anything less than "proficient" in the language department won't be good enough for her.

She still has a LOT of room to improve in both her vision and her language, as well as her overall physical health. She works every day to improve and will continue to do so, as... this is her job. And any job that she ever did, she did to her fullest capability, which was more than most people out there and a big part of how she impacted each of us. Her motivation, passion, and persistence is not only what made her the person she WAS, but also the reason she is able to improve and heal the way she currently IS.

I started this with stating, as a FACT, that Lacey impacted your life in a positive way. And the fact that I can say that without knowing who is reading this is a testament to the kind of person that she is. She is STILL that person, she is just that person who had so much taken from her, and is focused on taking back what she can. And if you know ANYONE that Lacey has touched, we would be so grateful if you could share this with them so that we can continue to help her continue to get back what capabilities she wants and needs. I would never ask for this if it wasn't something that was so much bigger than me, but this is... its to get back our Lacey, our Lou, to the best shape she can possibly be. She has come so far, but she has so much more in front of her. Whatever help we can get to support her journey is more than appreciated. Thank you all for reading through this, for caring about the most amazing person on this planet, and for helping us get through the worst nightmare we could have ever imagined.

Love,

Lacey and Chris