SupportKate

On Tuesday January 13th, our dear friend Kate was in a car accident in Taos which resulted in broken bones in her leg and ankle, and fractures in her ribs and spine. She was airlifted to UNM hospital in Albuquerque and has been there since Wednesday awaiting leg surgery, and insurance approval for a bed in a skilled nursing rehabilitation facility. 

The concentric circles of the medical and administrative hell realms are next level right now. Every inflammatory complication, insurance dead end, and red tape circus you can imagine, multiplied by 10. 

Before this accident, Kate was already navigating a complex intersection of chronic illness and autoimmune disease, all heavily compounded by multiple exposures of mold toxicity. In 2024, she moved from her decades-long home in Washington to get away from mold. She commissioned a tiny home to be built so that she could have a controlled, mold-free environment, and spent a year jumping through hoops to acquire zoning and permit approval in Questa, NM. Her health symptoms continued to worsen at which time she discovered that the pipes in her newly built tiny house had been leaking and now that space has also been mold contaminated. 

This was the backdrop in the weeks leading up to her car accident. Things had become so acute that Kate was having trouble eating due to pervasive nausea, leading to significant nutrient depletion in the context of a diet already severely limited by food sensitivities. She was living at a high altitude where it was becoming increasingly difficult to breathe given the stress of the mold toxicity in her system. She had already been managing the impossible balancing act of trying to stay well enough to function and advocate for herself, with too little support, when this car accident occurred. It’s been a punishing sequence of events for nearly 2 years straight. 

At this low point, Kate has now entered an even more complicated reality of navigating both acute physical injuries simultaneously with her complex intersection of chronic illnesses and environmental sensitivities. The wheels of the insurance approval process for rehab turn slowly, so right now she is stuck with ongoing chemical and mold exposure in her hospital room, and a lack of access to her most basic daily health supports, including nutrition. 

Kate faces a lengthy road ahead in both her immediate injuries and also getting to a mold free place where she can be supported in an extensive detox and rehabilitation process.

Once she has surgery she will need to be transferred to a rehabilitation facility. Insurance will only cover 2-4 weeks of rehab, and then she will need another place to go after that because her tiny home is compromised by mold and isn’t accessible with her injuries. 

Kate is going to need intensive daily caregiving support for much longer than the 2-4 week rehab that insurance covers. We want to expand the search for long-term holistic and rehabilitative care. This will almost certainly be an out-of-pocket expense, and Kate is prepared to consider any location that will meet her complex needs. 

She doesn’t yet know the full amount of support that she’ll need or for how long. She doesn’t know if her insurance is going to cover the care she has already received, including the bill from the emergency hospital in Taos and the airlift to Albuquerque, or how much of her care moving forward will be eligible for coverage.

Our intention with this fundraiser is to gather community around Kate who can hold her in the widest possibility of her recovery. Kate needs a support team and physical support context that can offer the full bridge out – both healing the broken bones and physical rehab, mobility support and daily caregiving, and actually getting to the point in her healing from mold and autoimmune complexity where she can embody her full vitality.

We humbly ask for any donation towards Kate’s medical expenses that is within your means. 

In addition to funds, Kate needs the following support:

• Do you have connections to any staff at UNM Hospital or United Healthcare who could help us to navigate or expedite things?
• Do you have any connections to medical liaisons working in the rehab facility arena, especially in navigating out of pocket pay if it comes to that?
• Are you local and willing to accept overnight deliveries on Kate’s behalf (she needs a shipping address in order to receive medical supplies the hospital won’t provide)
• Are you local and able to run errands on Kate’s behalf?
• Can you help with research support around long term care options? 
• Are there 1-2 other people who would like to be core support coordination as part of Kate’s health advocacy team? 

You can contact Parker Rice on facebook or at parkermcchesney@gmail.com to follow up on any support offers.