Olivia Sanchez Stroke Recovery Fund

Here's the background to Olivia's story:

On Thursday, March 30, 2023, around 4-6 pm, Olivia suffered a significant Intracerebral Hemorrhage of the basal ganglia.

Q1: What's that? Intracerebral Hemorrhage (ICH) is a type of stroke - a brain bleed. A hemorrhagic stroke occurs when an artery in part of the brain ruptures due to uncontrolled blood pressure. It is one of the most severe strokes. https://www.medlink.com/articles/basal-ganglia-hemorrhage#:~:text=Basal%20ganglia%20hemorrhage%20is%20one,blood%20pressure%20management%20and%20surgery

Q2: Where is the basal ganglia and what is its function?

The Cleveland Clinic website shares, "The basal ganglia are a group of structures near the center of your brain that form important connections." The National Institute of Health website shares, "It is responsible primarily for motor control, as well as other roles such as motor learning, executive functions and behaviors and emotions."

Q3: Did Olivia get to the hospital quickly?

Yes, Uly was the first to recognize that his mother was having a stroke by her slurred speach and poor walking ability. Olivia figured it out within the hour after Uly figured it out. So to minimize brain damage, she called her sister-in-law to drive Olivia (and Uly) straight to Pasadena's Huntington Stroke Center within 4 hours of first symptoms. She spent 4 nights at Huntington Medical Center, treated with IV drips / meds to stabilize her blood pressure. Upon discharge, her hospital physicians encouraged strict adherence to blood pressure meds.

Q4: What is Olivia's condition at this time (6 weeks after the stroke)?

Even so, she is able to walk, but with some balance, speed and gait issues.

She is able to speak, but with difficulty remembering many vocabulary words and trouble with sensory and emotions.

She is not able to dress completely, not remembering certain motor skills (or movements).

She is unable to perform certain kitchen tasks necessary for cooking.

Her brain requires a great deal of rest over the next year so that it can heal itself--she needs to sleep every few hours.

She requires a great deal of work with multiple therapists (sensory therapy, gait training (helps with balance--just yesterday morning, Olivia fell in the bathroom but thankfully, did not hit her head), speech therapy, psychotherapy (to deal with emotional changes like emotional blunting and depression), occupational therapy (to retrain skills such as getting dressed completely and/or tying one's shoes and cooking, etc).

Needless to say, her 17-year career as a home and hospital health care aide is over unless she makes significant progress in healing her brain. To that end, Olivia has been walking 3-5 miles every day to pump oxygen to the brain and strengthen her body. She has her first follow-up appointment with a medical doctor towards the end of May 2023. We will report the outcome of that visit at that time.

Q5: Who is providing primary care for Olivia at this time?

Olivia's 18-year-old son, Ulysses or Uly as most know him, is providing primary care for his mother. Olivia and Uly are both staying with long-time friends Sharon & Edward Beckett in Alhambra.

Q6: What is next in Olivia's life?

Olivia is moving to New Hampshire in about 30 days. Why? About to graduate from Cathedral High School as Salutatorian of his class of 2023, her son, Uly is bound for Dartmouth University, based in Hanover, New Hampshire.

Uly writes: We have together decided it would be best for our mother to move to New Hampshire to be near me at Dartmouth, find a handicapped accessible rental so she can have local emotional support, a much lower cost of living and more affordable caregiving support than she would find in LA County or with my sister, Amanda, who, at this time, wishes to stay in the Bay Area until her new job begins in August (employer currently unknown). Olivia is in the process of applying for permanent federal disability insurance, a process that takes at least 100 days to set up and qualify.

When we arrive in New Hampshire (the home of Dartmouth), Mom will apply for New Hampshire Medicaid (in late June) and we will begin the process of rebuilding her life with the help of caregivers, therapists, and friends before I start my first day of school at Dartmouth in September.

Q7: How can you help? (THIS IS WRITTEN BY AMANDA AND ULYSSES HILL):

As two recently graduated high school and university students, the two of us are in need of your help today to cover the estimated $59,000 in direct expenses we estimate our mother will incur over the next 12 months if she is to have any hope of as-close-to-a-full-recovery-as-possible with any prospect of working again or having a full life.

Currently, for her brain to heal, she must rest two hours for every hour she spends upright--she cannot work to support herself. She needs intensive daily physical, mental, speech, sensory, occupational therapy and home health care. On top of it all, she lives with dyslexia and ADHD (which makes all of her healing therapies more challenging).

Olivia (our mom) has been an incredible single mother to us.

• Amanda writes: My brother, Ulysses - was accepted to multiple colleges and universities. He recently accepted the full scholarship Dartmouth offered and is entering its freshman class this fall. He is also a Bill and Melinda Gates Fellow (750 out of a pool of 51,000) which will pay for any additional expenses Dartmouth doesn't cover.

• Ulysses writes: (my sister) the brilliant and beautiful Amanda, (who also received a full scholarship) is graduating from UC Berkeley May 13, 2023 with a degree in Genetics & Plant Biology. She is fielding job offers from academic labs to gain more lab experience to assist toward her future graduate degree program.

Our mom is incredibly proud of our academic achievements and trajectories - due in part to her tireless, unrelenting drive and single-minded dedication to our academic success - despite our growing up in public housing at times, without a father present. All told, our mother, Olivia is currently facing immense challenges as a result of the stroke that makes it impossible for her to support herself financially for the foreseeable future.

Though we assume that Amanda will have an academic lab assistant job to support herself, starting sometime this summer, neither of us has the ability to care for our mother’s expenses full-time.

And, seeing the amount of disability insurance that others are given, we know that our mother will need more because she cannot work at all and we cannot assist her while we are both seeking to better ourselves with the academic talents we’ve both been given. After Amanda and I both have good jobs, we plan on supporting our mother.

Thus, we're asking you to consider a generous donation to help us cover her costs of home health care, auto insurance, utilities and rental assistance for the next year so that Olivia can stay close to her children during this difficult time. Ulysses writes: Mom and I are hoping that Amanda will land an academic lab assistant job on the east coast, or in California. With your support, we can ensure that Mom has the financial resources she needs to receive the medical care she needs to recover.

This pass-through care fund will be managed by family friends Sharon and Edward Beckett and will be used to pay for the expenses outlined below. Because of various tax and disability regulations, setting up a Healthcare Savings Account would be counterproductive.

Here is a rough budget of what our mother, Olivia will need:

Apartment in New Hampshire for the next 12 months: 12 x $1550 = $18,600

(pre-paid so we can negotiate the lowest cost)

Utilities for one year 12 x $225 = $2,700

Car insurance for the next 12 months: 12 x $300 = $3,600

Weekly part-time companion care for cooking, medical & / therapy appts 52 x $650 = $33,800

(we will be seeking a retired registered nurse)

Our mom has always been a tireless advocate for our futures - so that we could be in the best possible position for the financial success that we believe awaits us, due to our academic success and commercially viable degrees. But we are in no position of being anywhere near capable of footing the $59,000 in estimated living and companion-care expenses imminently facing our mother.

She was a dedicated and hard-working independent caregiver to nine individuals and worked in a hospital on graveyard shifts over the last 17 years. She has no one else to turn to. Please consider donating to support Olivia - and by extension the two of us - during this exceedingly challenging time. Every contribution will make a real, direct and immediate difference. Please give what you are able.

Again, we are not able to set up a tax-deductible entity and we regret this inconvenience to you.

We thank you in advance for your generous donation to our mother's living expenses.

Ulysses and Amanda