{"id":83647,"date":"2013-09-17T09:00:52","date_gmt":"2013-09-17T13:00:52","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/?p=83647"},"modified":"2015-12-14T11:09:13","modified_gmt":"2015-12-14T16:09:13","slug":"health-center-nurse-overwhelmed-by-support","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/2013\/09\/health-center-nurse-overwhelmed-by-support\/","title":{"rendered":"Health Center Nurse \u2018Overwhelmed\u2019 by Support"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"DeFilippo<\/a>
Mark DeFilippo enjoys a visit from wife Kasia and sons Michael (left) and Matthew this summer at the Kessler Institute for Rehabilitation in New Jersey. (Photo provided by the DeFilippo family)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Imagine your spouse suffers a severe spinal cord injury in a car accident. The doctor tells you the chance of your spouse walking again is maybe 5 percent. In store for your family is months of inpatient care and rehabilitation in an out-of-state facility, while you\u2019re on unpaid leave from work with two young children at home.<\/p>\n

For Kasia DeFilippo, a nurse on the seventh floor of the UConn Health Center\u2019s John Dempsey Hospital, that\u2019s how her world changed earlier this year.<\/p>\n

Yet she calls herself \u201cblessed.\u201d<\/p>\n

The accident happened on May 6, when Mark DeFilippo and the couple\u2019s then-5-year-old son, Matthew, were driving home from kindergarten orientation. Matthew escaped serious injury. His father suffered fractures of his C4 and C5 vertebrae and was paralyzed from the neck down.<\/p>\n

For nearly the last four months, Kasia\u2019s husband has been at Kessler Institute for Rehabilitation in West Orange, N.J. It\u2019s about a 130-mile drive from home. He\u2019s a self-employed home builder who\u2019s been unable to work.<\/p>\n

Kasia went on family medical leave, her paid time off exhausted. A household without steady income faces the additional challenges of finding a more accessible home and vehicle on top of child care for two young boys.<\/p>\n

It didn\u2019t take long for her coworkers on the seventh floor to spring into action. Nurse manager Dawn Tranter started appealing to her staff to consider donating vacation time.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen I started to get responses, I was surprised to see that they were from employees whose names I did not even recognize,\u201d Tranter says. \u201cThe power of word of mouth assisted our efforts to help Kasia and her family.\u201d<\/p>\n

Then came a barbecue to raise money to help the DeFilippos with their expenses.<\/p>\n

\u201cEmployees not only donated money and hours, but they also donated things for the barbecue. You name it, they brought it,\u201d Tranter says. \u201cI could not believe the amount of support that UConn employees and coworkers have provided to Kasia and her family during this time.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"DeFilippo<\/a>
Matthew DeFilippo, 6, has a book to read to his father at the rehab center. (Photo provided by the DeFilippo family)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Kasia describes the benefit as an \u201coverwhelming abundance of generosity.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cFrom staff donating their vacation time so I can stay paid during my leave of absence; donating money, raffle items, food, games, bouncy house, and band and so much more… We were overwhelmed by how our community responded,\u201d she says. \u201cSpecial thanks to Farmington Lions Club, Farmington Police Department, Farmington Fire Department, Sanford and Hawley, Coldwell Banker, Prudential, and Richard and Jane Lublin. God continually surrounds us with awesome people as we grow stronger with this journey to recovery. We are truly blessed!\u201d<\/p>\n

Two months to the day of the accident, more than 300 people turned out for the barbecue at the Lions Club in Unionville.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Farmington Police Department volunteered their time, a nurse from Oncology 6 donated a bouncy house and Diane from Surg 7 donated a live band,\u201d Kasia DeFelippo says. \u201cWhen I walked in, there were so many people, I was overwhelmed with the outpouring of generosity. It was just amazing.\u201d<\/p>\n

The event raised more than $13,000.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt made me feel so proud of our UConn supporters,\u201d Tranter says.<\/p>\n

\u201cI am truly grateful and so proud to be part of such an incredible group of people,\u201d Kasia wrote in an email to those who helped make the benefit possible. \u201cYou have given us the opportunity for me to be able to stay with Mark in his room Monday-Friday. What a difference this has made on Mark\u2019s recovery\u2026 I owe it all to you!\u201d<\/p>\n

She says her husband is making progress and his chances for walking have improved.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe won\u2019t stop,\u201d she says. \u201cHe tells the therapists, \u2018You guys need to push me.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

A charity golf tournament is scheduled for Monday, Sept. 30<\/b>, at the Farmington Woods Golf Course in Avon. Those interested in supporting the 2013 DeFilippo Open can view the registration form<\/a> or email matt@ridgelinefp.com<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Anyone wishing to make a donation to the family can send a check to:<\/p>\n

Farmington Bank
\nAttn: The DeFilippo Fund
\n32 Main Street
\nFarmington, CT 06032<\/p>\n

\n
\n

Follow\u00a0the UConn Health Center<\/a> on\u00a0Facebook<\/a>,\u00a0Twitter<\/a> and\u00a0YouTube<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

As her family lives the nightmare of her husband\u2019s paralyzing spinal cord injury, Kasia DeFilippo is grateful for her UConn family.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":111,"featured_media":83659,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_crdt_document":"","wds_primary_category":0,"wds_primary_series":0,"wds_primary_attribution":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[179,1],"tags":[],"magazine-issues":[],"coauthors":[57,2010],"class_list":["post-83647","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uconn-health","category-uncategorized"],"pp_statuses_selecting_workflow":false,"pp_workflow_action":"current","pp_status_selection":"publish","acf":[],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-05-30 15:08:22","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/83647","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/users\/111"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=83647"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/83647\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":107150,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/83647\/revisions\/107150"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/media\/83659"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=83647"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=83647"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=83647"},{"taxonomy":"magazine-issue","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/magazine-issues?post=83647"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=83647"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}