GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. (WOOD) Family members are working to raise money to bring a 19-year-old high school graduate who suffered multiple strokes while in Hawaii back home to Michigan for continuing care.
“I’m waiting to just wake up and find out this was just the worst dream that I ever had, it’s a nightmare and I’m going to wake up,” Jessie Marchant’s mother Tammi Victorino said.
Family says Marchant, of East Grand Rapids, excelled in school and dreamed of going to Michigan State University to become a veterinarian.
“She’s always wanted to be a vet ever since she was a little kid,” her older sister Chloe Brown said.
She’s also a devoted aunt. At her two nieces’ Grand Rapids home, she painted brightly colored flowers and bumblebees on the playroom wall.
“This will always remind me of her and her strength and creativity,” Brown said of the art. “It was like a little project we did together.”
Marchant spent much of her childhood in Hawaii and is now living there with her mom. On Aug. 11, only days after her 19th birthday, Marchant woke up with neck pain. Within hours, she couldn’t move.
She had suffered multiple strokes, her sister told local affiliate WOOD-TV.
“Within those 24, 48 hours, she went from being totally normal to not being able to move anything besides her head,” Brown said.
A spinal cord stroke at only 19 is rare, doctors say, and happens when blood flow in one’s spinal cord is interrupted. Such a stroke can be fatal or result in permanent disabilities.
Jessie Marchant’s father Mark Marchant, who lives in West Michigan, said watching from afar has been heartbreaking.
“It hurts me because I don’t want to see my kids hurt. I told her, ‘If I could do anything, I would take it from you,'” he said.
The family is working to bring Jessie Marchant back to West Michigan for advanced stroke care.
“I want her to come here where the best doctors are,” Mark Marchant said.
The family launched a GoFundMe account seeking $100,000 to pay for a medical flight, as well as other medical and living expenses.
Her mother said despite the pain, Jessie Marchant has not lost her determination.
“My Jessie is a fighter,” Victorino said. “And if this was me, I don’t know how mentally I would handle it.”
