Brenda
Under the current law, thousands of immigrants with temporary legal status are ineligible for affordable health care.
by Rachel Glickhouse @riogringa
CHAMBERSBURG, Pa. — It was a mother’s worst nightmare. Maria Lopez, a single mother of three, answered her door one August afternoon to find employees from her eldest daughter’s school.
“They told me, ‘Prepare yourself. They’re taking Brenda to the hospital,’” Lopez said.
Brenda Zamorano, then 17, had been found unconscious in the bathroom at school.
Lopez later discovered that her daughter had suffered a brain hemorrhage after an arteriovenous malformationruptured. Less than 1 percent of the population is born with this condition, and ruptures most often occur in people ages 15 to 20.
“I started to pray and pray and pray,” said Lopez, a devout evangelical Christian. “It’s purely God’s mercy that Brenda is alive.”
But the brain injury left her daughter paralyzed and unable to speak.
Read More on: Al Jazeera America