36 THE QUEENS COURIER • BUZZ • JANUARY 28, 2021 FOR BREAKING NEWS VISIT WWW.QNS.COM
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Astoria woman’s viral TikTok video helps raise
nearly $30,000 for father’s stroke treatment
BY ANGÉLICA ACEVEDO
aacevedo@schnepsmedia.com
@QNS
When Kat Downer shared the story of
her father and his condition in a 60-second
TikTok video in the hopes of raising
enough funds to give him a better
life, she had no idea it’d go viral. She’s still
shocked it led her to raise nearly $30,000,
three times her original goal, for her
GoFundMe fundraiser.
“I really didn’t expect the video
to blow up like it did. When it hit 20
million views, I was like, ‘What the
hell!’ I couldn’t comprehend,” Downer,
an Astoria resident, told QNS. “I said,
‘Humanity, is that you?’ I didn’t think so
many people would relate as they did.”
Downer fi rst shared the heartfelt story
of her father, Mike, on TikTok on Jan. 13.
Her father, 79, suff ered a massive stroke in
2017, leaving him unable to walk, talk or
eat, she explained in her GoFundMe page.
Aft er being in a coma for two weeks, her
father was moved to a rehab center where
doctors attempted to help him regain his
ability to swallow and some other motor
abilities.
But his health insurance only covered
rehab for a short period of time and he
was moved to a nursing home on Long
Island, where her family resides, for longterm
care.
Downer and her mother, Darlene, were
at his side every day for three years, performing
care themselves to try to maintain
his physical and occupational therapy
in order to prevent him from further
decline.
“It’s a lot of his family having
to advocate for him,”
Downer said. “Even in
best health care situation,
where insurance
and doctors and everyone
is on your side, it’s
hard to tackle.”
At the beginning of
2020, they found a
nearby treatment
facility offering
hyperbaric oxygen
therapy
fi ve days
a week.
Hyperbaric oxygen therapy is a non-invasive
treatment for stroke patients meant to
enhance the body’s natural ability to heal,
Downer explained. Th e alternative treatment
costs $225 per session, with the recommended
amount of sessions at 40.
Now 28 years old, Downer is studying
to become a nurse. She would use her student
loans to pay for her father’s alternative
treatment, while working as a a pharmacy
tech, dog walker and even an Uber
driver in order to pay
for her own bills.
“ L i v i n g
here, it’s no
cake walk,”
Downer
said, who
lives with
roommates
in order to split rent.
But Downer said things were looking
promising for her father, thanks to the
treatments.
Th en, COVID-19 happened. Th ey were
forced to end the treatment and were not
allowed to visit him at the nursing home.
Th is was especially devastating for her
mother, who was struggling to be apart
from her husband and “best friend” for
the fi rst time in 40 years.
Downer’s father then caught the virus.
“I was scared when he caught COVID
because of everything we were hearing
in the news. I was so sure he would
die,” Downer said. “We were really scared
because people in his facility were dying.
I was really scared because he can’t speak,
he cant ask for help.”
Downer was coordinating with her
father’s doctors about his treatment over
the phone. She didn’t tell her mother her
father caught the virus, afraid for her own
health as she’d oft en get sick when he
would. But, her mother eventually found
out two weeks later, when her father was
already recovering.
“She was upset but it’s OK. He had
passed the mark of danger,” Downer said,
noting that aft er 10 days is when doctors
know if someone needs to be intubated.
While their family is relieved their
father survived the virus, Downer has
noticed a decline in his motor abilities.
She thinks part of the decline has to do
with her family not being able to visit
him since March nor give him alternative
treatment.
Downer added that father doesn’t
respond well to FaceTime or virtual chatting
like others would.
“He needs more than medicine and
food. He needs brain stimulation,” she
said. “It’s sad and diffi cult to watch.”
But Downer sees he’s trying and has the
motivation to get better.
And now, thanks to TikTok and the
generous people who have donated —
some donations have been for hundreds
of dollars — Downer not only has enough
to pay the debt of previous treatments, but
is confi dent she can off er her father a better
quality of life.
“Me and my mom always wanted to
bring him home, but we don’t have a lot
of money,” Downer said, adding that her
mother rents a home and that the equipment
they’d need to support him is costly.
But with the money raised, Downer said
they can think about using it for a down
payment for a house.
“I can just put it away and add to it
when I get a job as a nurse,” Downer said.
Downer described her father as “an
absolutely brilliant man, an avid book
reader and lover of classical music,” as
well as a “master bird watcher.”
In one of her videos, Downer tells her
father how thankful she is to have him.
“You’re really my best friend, dad. I tell
my therapist all the time. I’m so lucky to
have a dad who made me feel safe and
happy,” she tearfully tells her father in the
video. “A lot of people don’t have that.
Th at’s why I’m so thankful for you, dad.”
Downer said she’ll do her best to keep
the thousand of people who newly followed
her updated on his recovery. She
only had about 70 followers prior to going
viral, and is now at nearly 170,000.
“Th ere’s no real happy ending for my
dad; he’s 79. But I did not want him to go
alone,” Downer added, noting that there
is no clear timeline for when the pandemic
will end. “Th e best thing would be
to bring him home so he can be with his
family, his children, his grandkids.”
Downer, a fi rst-generation child of immigrant
parents (her father is English and her
mother is Filipino), said she almost felt
desensitized as she focused her eff orts on
helping her family get through it all.
“Th is whole experience has been really
lonely. I’m relatively young … although
people can empathize I struggle to fi nd
people who can really understand,” she
said. “I’ve been dealing with this for four
years … but for everyone else, it’s not normal
— it’s tragic and devastating. I was
really moved it meant a lot to people.”
One of the most remarkable aspects of
the experience for Downer has been the
outpouring of messages from strangers,
some of whom had similar experiences
and others who took her story as a chance
to reach out to their own family.
“Th at support alone, I can’t put in to
words. I read every single message. I’ve
been telling my dad the messages,” she
said. “It’s that human interaction we’ve
been lacking. TikTok literally changed my
life. Every day I wake up, trying to wrap
my head around it.”
Photo courtesy of Kat Downer
Kat Downer and her father, Mike Downer (left).
Photo courtesy of Kat Downer
Mike Downer and Darlene Downer in May 2017.
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