Joy Cochran

Family and friends of Joy Cochran are raising money for the nonprofit Help Hope Live to fund uninsured medical expenses associated with Catastrophic Illness.

Currently, our family’s greatest needs right now include purchasing an adaptive van for Joy and her wheelchair, as well as making safety adaptiations around our home to help Joy access the main living spaces of the home, such as the bathroom and kitchen. We do not have any outside assistance that Joy is eligible for that would lessen the burden of making adaptive and structural improvements to our home to allow Joy to continue to safely reside in our home.

Our top priority is replacing Joy’s current vehicle with an adaptive van. Joy currently has a 2005 Toyota Tacoma that does not meet her accessibility needs. In fact, previous modifications (hand controls) failed while Joy was driving on I-5. Thankfully, she avoided what could have been a catastrophic accident, but repair costs for the hand controls, the age of the vehicle, and Joy’s current accessibility needs mean it is time to replace her truck with a wheelchair accessible van.

The current cost of an accessible van can be $75,000-$100,000, or more, depending on the make, model, condition, and modifications required. That is a big financial stress on our family, especially with Joy’s limited income after retiring due to disability in October 2019.

Joy lives with an extremely rare variant of an orphan disease, that you may never have heard of: complex spastic paraplegia. Spastic paraplegia is a progressive, degenerative motor neuron disease with no treatment or cure. It is sometimes referred to as a “benign variant of ALS” because of the similarities in the disease process. This disease affects Joy’s quality of life due to difficulty walking, stiffness, pain, poor balance, muscle weakness and sensory impairment in her arms and legs, speech and swallowing difficulties, and many other symptoms that impact daily activities. Joy was advised that she was the 3rd person identified with the variant of the disease she was diagnosed with.

Despite debilitating fatigue and unrelenting pain, Joy focuses on fully enjoying every day. After retirement, she found renewed purpose in disability advocacy, community organizing, accessible community building, and participating in adaptive athletics, especially wheelchair tennis. However, Joy needs reliable and accessible transportation to continue to do all of theee things.

Joy has chosen to fundraise 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!