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Accessibility for all: Helping people connect with who and what matters most
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Suddenly being told I was required to use an electric wheelchair is scary. Learning how much one weighs is eye opening. Realizing there is no way to transport it is depressing. Learning about Mobility vans is encouraging. Learning the price of a van and conversion is $83,00.00 is overwhelming. I knew there was no way that I could ever afford one on my own. With the aid of Help Hope Live and you, I can once more get out of my house and Drive on with LIFE.
This is my story.
Hi, I am Diana Breure. I am a 100% disabled Army Veteran I served for 8 years. My husband is also a 100% disabled Army Veteran, he served for 20 years. I was unable to continue my military career due to hearing loss and a seizure disorder. We later found out that we were labeled as “Toxic Soldiers”. Due to our time at Fort McClellan, Alabama. The effects of our exposure due to Chemical and radiation exposure are devastating.
After our military careers my husband and I worked with at-risk teens and their families through Youth For Christ. Though a budget called for a salary the funds were never enough. We continued doing this for 7 years, never receiving a paycheck. The National Office made us shut it down due to lack of funding. Sadly, it was not due to lack of those in need. We then worked as treatment foster parents again working with troubled teens. We stopped doing foster care when I went to college. However we never stopped having people in need stay with us, the count as of now is 80 people the shortest time was 4 hours the longest just shy of 3 years. Our daughter jokingly says “You guys are just aren’t complete unless your helping someone or someone in need is staying with you.”
After college I worked in the medical field as a Laboratory Technician. I worked from 1998 until October of 2010 when I started having uncontrollable muscle spasms and falls. It took many different doctors until I found a neurologist that diagnosed me. I have a rare disease called Cervical Dystonia Torticollis. It is neurological disease. The effect of Dystonia is essentially your nerves tell your muscles to contract but neglects to tell them to relax, similar to a leg cramp at night. This causes constant severe pain and contractures. It affects my neck, shoulders and right side. Sometimes my entire body will go into spasm, sometimes even stopping my ability to breathe. These episodes last anywhere from 5 minutes to 27 hours. They are extremely painful and debilitating.
I was very active, even when I first received my diagnosis. I would visit our grandchildren and take them places. I would hike, hunt, fish, garden, and ride our horses, knit, and bake, I was even going to painting classes. I did not want my disease to define me. Then I was thrown from a horse and broke my back in 10 places. This was the second time I broke my back, the first time I broke it in 2 places. I started to fall more frequently. These falls were so severe I received several Traumatic Brain Injures {TBls), even ending up with a subdural hematoma (That’s a brain bleed) and my 12th TBI. The Dystonia got worse. The residual effects of multiple TBl’s, leaves me with almost constant headaches, balance issues and gait issues causing yet more falls. I have some cognitive issues as well. It took all our savings and a large mortgage and we built a handicap accessible home. Then the Dystonia got worse.
I gave up hiking, hunting, knitting, and going fishing, I sold my horse. Then my dystonia got worse. I fell using my walker and broke my nose, twice each time being diagnosed with yet another TBI. I got an aide that comes twice a week to help with things around the house. Then my dystonia got worse.
Now at age 56, my doctor orders me to use an electric wheelchair. I live in the country, there isn’t any public transportation. Let alone handicap accessible ones. Now, I am like a prisoner in my home. I can get around my house okay, but I can’t go anywhere. Neither my husband nor I can disassemble and load a 350 pound electric wheelchair. Now I can’t leave my home. Not grocery shopping, not visiting my grandchildren, not my painting classes not even to go out to the doctor. I need an accessible van. With our savings gone and all our money tied up in our home, there is nothing left to purchase one.
The Veterans Administration will not cover one I still have both of my legs and I am not paralyzed. Medicare certainly won’t cover one. I am not a combat injured veteran serving after 9/11/2001, so the organizations for veterans won’t help and I don’t qualify for state aide. I was just given an estimate it will cost $35,000.00 to convert a van to make it wheelchair accessible. That doesn’t take into consideration the cost of the vehicle $48,000.00. I haven’t really come to terms yet with having to be in the wheelchair for the rest of my life. But now I have to face being confined at home also. Not because I am too ill. Only because I have fallen through the cracks.
Family and friends of Diana Breure are raising money for the nonprofit Help Hope Live to fund uninsured medical expenses associated with Catastrophic Illness.
Diana has chosen to fund-raise for Help Hope Live in part because Help Hope Live assures fiscal accountability of funds raised and tax deductibility for contributors. Contributors can be sure donations will be used to pay or reimburse medical and related expenses. To make a tax-deductible donation to this fundraising campaign, click on the Give button.
For more information, please contact Help Hope Live at 800.642.8399.
Thank you for your support!
Happy Mother's Day to all the moms out there.
Like everyone, we are staying home. A friend told me "Now I know how you feel." I didn't understand. She then said "now I know what it feels like to not be able to go out". Well I agreed, I guess so.
However, I want everyone to know we are praying for a end of this virus to come soon. In the meantime, we are following the 91st Psalm. If you don't know it, look it up. It seems to have been written just for now.
Thank you so much to those who have helped and continue to do so. Please let us all pray for our First Responders, police, firemen and women, and all medical workers during this time. They truly are sacrificing so much just to be there for us.
We are just staying home, doing doctor visits by phone. I am still looking a vehicles on-line but understanding that it is a tough time to fund raise with everything that is happening. A special thank you to everyone who has given encouraging emails, phone calls and letters. May God keep everyone healthy.
02/25/2020
I wanted to thank my anonymous angel. May God richly bless you. My husband put up campaign flyers around town. There was so many positive people, who really wanted to help. So many businesses willing to hang the flyers, what encouragement! I want to Thank Amery Free Press in Amery Wisconsin for the printing of the flyers, they look great.
Blessings to everyone
Diana
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Help Hope Live
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In honor of Diana M Breure
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Help Hope Live
2 Radnor Corporate Center
Suite 100
100 Matsonford Road
Radnor, PA 19087
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