Ferdinand Mangaoang was enjoying retirement after a long career as a draftsman, indulging his passion for cooking and spending time with his wife, children and grandkids. He had a scare three years ago with a mild stroke that slowed his gait but seemed to otherwise recover.
Then on June 10, 2016, disaster struck. His wife, Cecilia, found him snoring and drooling in the morning, unable to get up. Their son and daughter-in-law gave him CPR, but medics gave him grave odds as they whisked him to the hospital.
Ferdinand, 62, survived the second stroke. But this time the damage was profound, and his prospects for returning home daunting. After two weeks in a coma, he was sent to nursing homes, where he remained bedridden, reliant on breathing and feeding tubes.
But the Mangaoang family got a break when the Silicon Valley Independent Living Center worked with them to modify their San Jose home to accommodate Ferdinand’s disabilities and allow him to return home under the care of his family rather than in a skilled nursing facility.
“We really appreciate that they put Ferdinand back in his home so we can take care of him,” said Cecilia, who like her daughter-in-law Armida had worked as a nurse in the Philippines. “It’s better here than at the nursing home. At least here at home, we can take care of him.”
The center is requesting $25,000 from Wish Book, which Burns said is enough to help about 15 people in nursing facilities move back home.
Since 1976, the nonprofit independent living center has been trying to ease the financial burden for Santa Clara County residents with disabilities who want to remain in their homes. It is among 28 such Independent Living Centers in California, and more than 400 nationwide.
The Silicon Valley Independent Living Center has helped more than 200 disabled people such as Ferdinand live at home since 2011, ranging in age from 18 to over 100, Executive Director Sheri Burns said. Typically the cost is a few thousand dollars to install things such as hand rails, grab bars and ramps around the recipient’s home.
Ferdinand’s case posed more of a challenge. The organization provided $7,000 worth of home improvements for him — wheelchair ramps, hallway widening, sturdier flooring for a living room converted to his bedroom, a roomier refrigerator, high-powered vacuum and an air conditioner.
Though the stroke has greatly limited Ferdinand’s ability to communicate, his family knows his subtle gestures — movements of the hands, eyebrows — that express his feelings. And Armida said her father-in-law is much happier since returning home.
At the nursing home, Armida said, he seemed checked out. When they told him he was coming home, she said, he gestured his excitement with his eyebrows and hands. His room is painted a cheerful tangerine color, with a picture-puzzle put together by his grandchildren on his wall. He enjoys watching detective shows on TV, she said.
Burns said the program provides a more efficient and personal level of care for people who couldn’t otherwise afford the improvements needed to live at home.
“We see people as having inherent dignity,” Burns said. “The whole idea of people being warehoused is antithetical to that. If they have the desire, we do what we can to help people move back home.”
Each client is supported by a transition coordinator from the agency who helps the family work through all the medical, legal and financial bottlenecks and creates a personal plan. Those facilitators regularly visit nursing homes looking for clients who could benefit from the program and provide followup assistance after the client returns home.
In Ferdinand’s case, his son Robinson struck up a conversation with living center transition coordinator Tita Das at the nursing home where he was being housed.
“We needed a lot of home modifications,” Das said. “I had to do all the research on what could be done.”
Though it was more expensive than the agency’s typical cases, the family’s eagerness to provide the high level of care Ferdinand would require — and the fact that his wife and daughter-in-law had some medical training — made his case compelling, Das said.
“She understands exactly what her husband’s level of comfort is,” Das said.
Current federal aid programs, Burns said, allow funding that otherwise would go toward monthly nursing home expenses to be spent on one-time improvements that allow the recipient to return home. But that program, begun in 2010, is set to expire at the end of this year unless Congress reauthorizes it. Burns can’t understand why lawmakers would discontinue something that replaces a monthly $8,000 expense with a one-time $8,000 cost to return home.
“I cannot believe Ferdinand is home already,” Cecilia said, looking at her husband. “They are really helping us. I want them to continue the program so that they can help more people.”
THE WISH BOOK SERIES
The Wish Book is an annual series of The Mercury News that invites readers to help their neighbors.
WISH
Donations will help Silicon Valley Independent Living Center provide home accessibility and safety modifications so that people with disabilities can remain in their homes. Goal: $25,000
HOW TO GIVE
Donate at wishbook.mercurynews.com or mail in the coupon.
ONLINE EXTRA
Read other Wish Book stories, view photos and video at wishbook.mercurynews.com.
