Welcome to our CaringBridge page for Maxine. We are using it to keep family and friends updated in one place. We appreciate your support and your words of hope and encouragement.
We are grateful that Maxine has so many loving friends and family members near and far who would like to keep in touch and be updated on her progress. As we all know, Maxine's a very popular woman! ...so in order to keep updating everyone, we decided to put up this site.
As many of you know, Maxine suffered a massive stroke on May 16th, leaving her left-side paralyzed. Her breast cancer surgery (lumpectomy) she had a few weeks prior may be responsible for releasing a clot which could have brought on this stroke. It is not known how many hours had passed between the incident and being found (roughly 3-5 hours). She was found in her apartment by her step-daughter, Lynda who was supposed to meet her for lunch that day. The Dr.’s did what they could to break up the clot but they informed us that too much time had passed and they could not remove it.
She was taken to Aventura Hospital and was in ICU for several days, making a bit of progress here and there. Eventually she was put into a regular hospital room and then we were able to get her into a great rehab facility called Memorial Regional South located at 3600 Washington Street, Room 601 (
https://www.mhs.net/services/rehabilitation (
https://www.mhs.net/services/rehabilitation)). She has three hours of therapy a day and will be at this rehab facility for 2-3 weeks.
At the rehab center, they will work with her on sitting up on her own, getting into a wheelchair and eventually walking (progress with this kind of stroke is very slow and this could take a year or more). An occupational therapist noticed some sort of movement in her left shoulder/collar bone area, saying it was a good sign but the left arm may be the most difficult to bring back. They told us her leg will recover first, followed by the face, swallowing, speech and then arm.
We are all doing our part to make sure Maxine is comfortable and in the best care possible. Last week, we were in Florida with our brother Matt to do whatever we could to help. Our mother, as many of you know, is battling stage 4 pancreatic cancer, and she TOO is helping from NY, as my aunt and mother are extremely close. Maxine has 24 hour care as of now with her long time housekeeper Elizabeth, and her sister Philonie, who are both CNA’s and know her for over 15 years. We will access her level of support and care as she progresses with her recovery.
Please send your prayers, loving thoughts, kind wishes. Most importantly, FAMILY & FRIENDS IN FLORIDA... please visit! We will get down there as often as we can and will help her through each transition. We encourage you to leave your loving thoughts and comments here.
Thank you,
Randi and Melissa
Maxine's nieces
