Stephanie Weede - Skilled Nursing Facility Needs

My name is Sarah Weede, I am Stephanie Weede's Sister-in-Law and the wife of Jhan Weede.

Stephanie has had a difficult time over the past few decades. She has been taken advantage of in the past in failed relationships and horrible "friendships," ultimately leading to severe mental illness and other medical conditions.

We moved her back down to Georiga in 2019, when she had a very bad mental breakdown and ended up in the hospital in Minnesota. Since then, she has been living with her mother, Jo Lucey, who has done what she can do to take care of Stephanie, but she can only do so much. Jo has early-onset dementia and a handful of other medical issues and cannot take care of herself, let alone Stephanie. We recently relocated to Texas so we could be closer to family and have a better support system, but Stephanie has taken a downward spiral medically. She was recently diagnosed with Diabetes on top of her other medical conditions and has been hospitalized three times since this March.

Her last two hospital stays were due to being septic from infections that she developed on her back and legs. This time, the hospital got the infection "under control" and discharged her well before she was ready because she does not have insurance. She had a large portion of her back removed the second trip to the hospital, and this last time they removed a large portion of her thigh. She's developed osteomyelitis in her hip, but if the antibiotics they sent her home with do not work, she could end up losing part of that hip and we are not sure what that means for her ever walking again. She cannot sit up in bed on her own and cannot even stand without two people holding her up. The physical therapy rehab facility would not take Stephanie because she has no insurance, so they discharged her on 8/18/23 back to Jo's apartment. Jo wants so badly to take care of her, but she cannot. The doctors said she needs to be in a skilled nursing facility for a minimum of three months, but without insurance, they will not take her unless we pay cash upfront.

Stephanie desperately needs this as we are trying to get her on disability, but that takes a minimum of three months even to get a case pending. We cannot afford the roughly $7,500 per month that it will take to get her into the skilled nursing facility. She has severe depression, anxiety, and was also diagnosed with schizophrenia. We do not like to ask for help, but there is no other way that we can see to get her the help that she needs. We have asked Jo to move in with us, but she refuses, so we are looking at other options for her that allows her to have the autonomy she wants, but until we can get Stephanie into a facility, she will continue to insist that she can take care of Stephanie. It is not safe for either of them, so we are doing all that we can to get her into this facility. We appreciate any help and all the prayers that we can get as we navigate this extremely difficult challenge.