Monica Krugel Stroke recovery and Care Fund

Hi, my name is Elissa Kaplan. The youngest of 3 daughters to Martin and Monica Krugel. After long deliberation and consideration, I have taken it upon myself to set up a fundraiser in honour of my mom. We currently reside in Cape Town, South Africa. My Middle sister lives in Hermanus and my eldest Sister lives in Bloemfontein in the Free State.

Just to give some background information about our story.

In 2020 my father passed away at the age of 69 due to his health. He was diagnosed with Colon Cancer and started Chemo during January of 2020. Unfortunately, he contracted a bacterium via his Chemo port, and it caused an infection in his knee prosthesis. Unfortunately, the final diagnoses of his illness were only found after he died.

Then as our entire family was still grieving greatly, I found out that I was pregnant. We were ecstatic that after the pain, trauma and fear of losing a parent we finally had something to look forward to.

But, unfortunately this was short lived, as exactly 2 months after breaking the news of my pregnancy, we suffered yet another ordeal. My mother, aged 69 at that time, suffered a massive Ischemic stroke.

All her daughters live in different towns and none of us were able to check in on her physically, so we had to rely on cellphones in order to keep in touch. 12 November 2021, 22:43 was the last time our mother texted us goodnight before she suffered a stroke and collapsed on the bathroom floor. On the Saturday morning when we weren't able to get hold of her, we alerted the landlord and requested a welfare check. They found her naked on the bathroom floor 14 hours post stroke. We were utterly devastated. She was rushed to hospital and us, as her children got in our cars and drove to her town. She sustained some bruises, but had luckily not broken anything, (she had 2 hip replacements done prior). She was diagnosed with aphasia and apraxia and was unable to communicate or understand anything we were saying.

She was in hospital in her town for 6 days until we got her transferred to our town, where we would be able to check up on her regularly. We had no idea what life had in store for us, and we forcefully had to decide to pack up her entire apartment and place it in storage. This was still under strict COVID lockdown regulations, and we were only able to see my mother and speak to the healthcare professionals on appointment basis for only 15mins a day. We struggled so much understanding what was happening and so many different diagnoses drove us insane. We did not want to experience it all again.

She was hospitalized and transferred to a rehab center for 8 weeks thereafter. We were not allowed to see her over this period of time and were only able to hear her voice, but she still was unable to speak. She was discharged with some helping aids such as a wheelchair, transfer belt, transfer board and a tripod. She had lost all function on her right-hand side, and she was unable to walk.

After being discharged we had her living at home with us for 3 weeks having a speech therapist, home carer, and physio work with her on a daily basis. The carer was with her during the day and we took care of her at night. We then transferred her over to a care home in our town and that is where she still resides today.

She is a frail care patient and is still wheelchair bound. The people at the care home take great care of her and she has made amazing progress in the times that she has been there. Unfortunately, that also means that to get such services, one must pay for it. We as her children are currently solely responsible for paying these fees. These fees include her bed rental, her diapers, toiletries and other additional costs. We have thought it well to keep my mother’s finances protected for her with the hopes that she would be able to use it again one day. She receives a government grant as a pensioner that adds to the contributions every month.

We want her to receive the best care and help for her journey to recovery, but unfortunately, we cannot keep up with these expenses all by ourselves.

She healthily made it past her 1 year post stroke mark in 2022 and her condition has improved significantly since her discharge from rehab.

What she has achieved in one year:

* She can stand up straight for a few seconds at a time

* She can lift her right arm and slightly grip objects with her right hand

* She had taught herself how to colour and gained full function of her left hand as this is now her dominant functioning side.

* She can fully comprehend what we are saying and memory seems to be clear.

* She can send stickers and make video calls on her mobile device.

* She can dress herself with some form of assistance, but cannot operate or move wheelchair in order to do things herself due to only one hand functionality.

* She can speak short, easy sentences with occasional longer and more difficult words. She does tend to speak better when relaxed and not feeling nervous or forced to speak. She can count on her own and also say the days of the week and the months of the year all by herself. She can also remember and recite lyrics to songs when she hears something familiar.

We want her to make a full recovery and in order to do that, we need to keep up with physiotherapy, speech therapy and occupational therapy. We want to raise as much as we can in order to pay for her accommodation at the care center, her treatments and medical expenses, and treatments by her therapists.

I would be happy if you could use the [Help by sharing] button to share about my project!