Tammy Compton - Wheelchair Accessible Van

My name is Christopher Compton, I'm the youngest of two to my dad, Vincent Compton & my mom, whom this GoFundMe is for, Tammy Compton.

In June 2022, my mom suffered a pretty severe stroke while she was at her favorite gas station, the one she went to almost daily to chat with the owners. She was transferred to VCU in Richmond, where she underwent procedure after procedure, including but definitely not limited to getting a piece of her skull removed to relieve bleeding pressure on her brain, as well a procedure to place a tube into her stomach that ultimately ended up giving her really bad sepsis. My mom actually ended up dead for a couple minutes due to the sepsis, but thankfully she was brought back. Unfortunately, the sepsis did severe enough damage to her kidneys to require dialysis 3 times a week. Needless to say, she had a really, really rough time while she was in the hospital -- a rough time that honestly didn't get remotely better until roughly 6 or 7 months had passed.

My mom started out restricted to a bed due to the fact she can't use her left side at all, and after her long stays in rehabilitation facilities, she ended up needing substantially more physical therapy because the rest of her muscles started to weaken - none of these facilities offered physical therapy. After a really long uphill climb, she's finally somewhat back to the point she can sort of sit up and can handle short durations sitting in her wheelchair. To say it took a ton of work to get to this point is seriously an understatement.

Recently, her Medicaid coverage was reduced to what they call limited. That translates to: her necessary dialysis is still covered 3 times a week, but her transportation to/from the dialysis center is no longer covered. From what we were told, no medical transportation is covered. My dad is self-employed and takes care of my mom almost completely by himself, save for a couple people that help out when they can by sitting with my mom while my dad gets a chance to go out and work. Not only does my dad have enough on this front, he is also (along with my mom,) the legal guardian(s) of my brother's two kids - so he has to juggle taking care of my mom while simultaneously caring and providing for two children and still finding time, somehow, to get out and work.

None of this story was meant to garner sympathy -- these are legitimately just the absolute truths and facts of the situation. In order to help reduce some of my dad's burdens, I've been going to help him load/unload my mom into their personal vehicle, since he's unable to move her himself, and I don't really want him trying anyways because if he got hurt in the process there would be an entirely new batch of chaos to deal with. I've been out of work for paternity leave and have been available to help out, but it's time for me to return to work finally. We started looking for a wheelchair accessible van almost two weeks ago, and after probably two dozen situations of buying a used vehicle falling through and a couple attempts to secure the financing ourselves failing, GoFundMe is where I ended up finally. My dad is a proud person, and I ended up getting that from him - we don't ask people for help very often, but this ended up being one of those situations where I don't feel like we have any other choice.

Anything would help, and I don't expect the goal to be met. Whatever we end up with will 100% go towards securing transportation to get my mom to/from her dialysis and doctor appointments, and we could even see about her possibly going out to other places to try and return to some sense of normality. Thank you for reading through the story and God bless you.