On August 11, four days after her 19th birthday, 2024 EGR grad Jessica Marchant’s life changed forever.
Jessica was a lively student at EGR just a few years ago. She was in the IB program and was a very good student. After high school, she moved to Hawaii and was planning to come back to Michigan to attend Michigan State University after a gap year. It was in Hawaii where she suffered an extremely rare spinal stroke at just 19 caused by an undetected blood clot, resulting in paralysis.
While Jessica’s cognitive abilities are still the same as they were before the incident, she is suffering major physical challenges and changes.
Her doctor in Grand Rapids, Dr. Vandenberg, outlined her current condition in an article for Fox 17.
He stated that she is in a specialized spinal cord center, and that the medical team is going to set her up with equipment to help her be as independent as possible. Her doctors are also setting Jessica up with a neurologist here in Grand Rapids to potentially explore some of those possible causes of her stroke, seeing as though a stroke is an incident that happens in the brain.
This being said, the necessary treatment that Jessica is receiving is very expensive. This is why her family has organized a GoFundMe campaign to help support Jessica’s ongoing medical expenses.
Dr. VandenBerg is optimistic about Jessica’s recovery based on her current neurological function, and this is a critical time period in her journey.
This is why we as a community need to come together to support Jessica. To donate money to her family, you can visit the link at the bottom of this article.
East, help Jessica get the research and treatment that she needs.
