Hold me fast, cause i’m a hopeless wanderer
Hi everybody,
So I’ve been on-and-off Tumblr a lot recently, but for the last two weeks it’s been because of a family emergency. Rosa, my little sister (well, okay, she’s 23, but she’s little to me), had a serious fall while she was rock climbing with a friend in Moab. She fractured some ribs, got a concussion, and injured her spine really badly — she’s paralyzed from the waist down. I’ve been out in Colorado, first with Rosa at the hospital in Grand Junction to which she got coptered from Moab, and then to get her settled in for longer-term rehab in Denver.
My family and Rosa’s friends are running a fundraising campaign to pay for Rosa’s medical expenses (two months of inpatient spinal rehab alone is looking like it’ll cost us at least $40,000, and that’s even with insurance paying for 80% of the first month. Just the ambulance transport from Grand Junction to Denver cost $4,000); for my mom, my stepdad and me to take turns visiting Rosa at Craig Hospital in Denver this summer as all of us live 2,000 miles away on the East Coast; and to give Rosa some support post-rehab — accessible housing, continued occupational and physical therapy, the whole shebang.
Rosa is one of the most active, athletic, stubborn, badass people I know. She hikes, races, mountain bikes, skis, snowboards, rock climbs, and works as a guide for several different wilderness programs. Sometimes she does all of this at 10,000 feet above sea level. She’s got a ridiculous puppy named Hank that she’s training as a therapy dog. She’s in school for nursing. All of that stuff is what motivates Rosa and gives her joy, and all of it is still completely possible for her (she’s already got her eye on the Paralympics, not kidding), but she’ll need a lot of support to get there.
My family just started a fundraising website here. Any amount you could donate would be a huge help, and if you can’t donate money — believe you me, I understand being broke as a joke — I’d be so grateful if you’d give this post a reblog. Rosa and her girlfriend are reaching out to their network of people who also dig living at high altitudes; my stepdad’s got his academic peeps; my mom’s got her fellow social workers and therapists. I have you guys. <3
Thank you so much,
Z
YA Meme: 3/10 Series/Books
Anna and the French Kiss and Lola and the Boy Next Door by Stephanie Perkins
