The Pace family has been dealing with a family health issue for several weeks and doing their best to work through it all on their own. It’s impacting their family finances and other ways of life. The school closures announced on Friday only add to their challenges with the unknown of income for many weeks. Susie Pace fell at her mother’s home on Jan. 29. She was taken to Sacred Heart Medical Center where the diagnosis was a traumatic brain injury (TBI) as the result of a SCAT5 concussion. These diagnoses mean Susie has suffered an injury to her brain with bruising and many, many concussion-like symptoms. On Feb. 6 Susie was taken by ambulance back to Sacred Heart due to severe symptomatic issues of the TBI/SCAT5. She was able to see a neurologist who indicated the recovery period could be three - six months for this level of injury. She had a second incident on Feb. 26 that again required ambulance transport and treatment. This week Susie is in the beginning stages of receiving occupational, physical, speech, vision and mental health therapies to recover. It is hoped she’ll be doing some kind of therapy at least three to five days each week to at least the end of April and her next evaluation. Susie’s biggest challenges right now are being out of work for an unknown period of time and holding even simple conversations. She’s having memory, vision, and auditory impacts. Being able to receive or make phone calls or texts and the inability to fully carry on at home are frustrating her to no end. The day to day needs of life are being handled as best they can but, it’s a struggle. Lily was in play practice for two hours each day, but that has been cancelled because of the governor’s announcement. It will help that Lily and Doug will be home because our biggest challenges have been keeping up with the household needs while being busy with Lily's play and Doug's sports commitments after school. As noted their family has been reluctant to ask for help. So many people in the world are in more severe situations and in need of help versus the Pace family. With that said, the challenges are mounting up for them; from cleaning to cooking to lost income it’s become a stressful way of life for all involved. Their family has been through two bouts of cancer with regards to Susie. This situation in many ways mirrors the challenges of those instances but not to the level of debt or lost income. PLEASE limit interactions with Susie directly. It’s hard for her to speak, text, read emails and much more. She can barely take care of herself right now. As the coming weeks of therapy are done hopefully that will improve. Updates will be provided as they are known. For now, any help will give their family a ray of hope in all of the turmoil they’re facing.