I hope it will be short and to the point, not to take up your valuable time. I'm saving my dad, we've already pulled him from death, but we're at a point where without rehabilitation, we won't be able to win this fight.

In February, my dad went to the hospital on his own feet, smiling for a procedure involved placing a stent in the carotid artery. The procedure was supposed to be brief, and he was supposed to go home afterwards. However, there have been complications; dad suffered one stroke and shortly after, another. The second one wasn't a typical stroke but a very rare one, known as a Percheron artery stroke in the brainstem. He ended up in the ICU, not to mention that nobody informed my mom about what had happened, only a patient who was lying with dad in the room overheard the conversation and told mom that something went wrong.

Doctors didn't give him much chance, they said he wouldn't survive it, and later they said he would be in a vegetative state. We were with dad every day all the time, especially mom. Dad was on a respirator, then he started breathing on his own, he had a tube in his throat (tracheotomy), and he was on breathing support, but he didn't want to wake up from the coma. We talked to him, stimulated his hands, played music. It started with movements in his legs, then arms, then he nodded his head for yes or no, there was communication, but he couldn't open his eyes. Bedridden rehabilitation began, first sitting up, and then even standing up; then he would briefly open his eyes, so we knew he could do it. Every day there was also a speech therapist, there was a progress. Mom started feeding him with liquid food, it wasn't easy, but every day was better.

One day I called the head doctor to tell her that we had to take the risk and that this was the time to put dad in a wheelchair, remove the tracheotomy and feeding tube because soon there would be nothing left to save. During this hospital stay, dad had pneumonia, a Klebsiella bacterial infection throughout his body, two epileptic seizures, dehydration, then overhydration, urinary tract infection.

That same evening we received a video of dad sitting in a wheelchair with his eyes open, no tubes, eating honey from a spoon, and speaking! For now, softly because his vocal cords needed to recover after the tracheotomy. They called me that evening, and dad said a lot of things, asked when he would go home, and when he heard my daughter's voice, he cried. It was a beautiful day! That evening, they also told him in the hospital what had happened and that he had been in a coma for over two months. Mom flew to the hospital the next day as if on wings, but it turned out that dad was different from the night before, he closed himself off. He was given antidepressants, and slowly he began to return to us again.

Two weeks after waking up from the coma, the hospital made a video of his progress and sent it to the rehabilitation center; he was transported there by ambulance. Mom arrived there after a day and a half of his stay there and was supposed to stay close to rehabilitation center for another month. Upon my mom's arrival at the rehabilitation center, it turned out that dad wasn't there, they sent him back to the hospital because he didn't want to eat, he slept all the time, and mom was informed that they wouldn't accept him anymore. Nobody even informed my mom that he was no longer there. Mom quickly returned to dad at the hospital; again, he had a feeding tube and catheter, and he was terribly hungry. They didn't give him a chance. The hospital suggests contacting the patient rights because this couldn't have happened.

Now we know that nobody will accept him under the national health insurance or he won't have proper care. In reality, only private rehabilitation will help us get him back on his feet. We're collecting funds for at least the first month of rehabilitation to give dad a chance to come back to us. Help us! Every penny matters, grain by grain. Without you, dad doesn't stand a chance.

Just to be clear, I live in The Netherlands for 24 years now and my parents live in Poland, the system works different there.