-Community rallies to help woman's family-

OSOYOOS TIMES-January 14, 2009-

By Karen KnelsenrnOsoyoos Times

She's out of the hospital and in stable, if weak, condition now.
But just days ago, 37-year-old Roxy Pattison, who recently moved to Osoyoos with her young family, was in a hospital bed at the Penticton Regional Hospital Intensive Care Unit in an inexplicable coma.
When Roxy said goodnight and went to bed on Dec. 5, she didn't know she wouldn't open her eyes again for a full two weeks.
She just didn't wake up, said Joyce Hopkins, a new friend of the family. She went to sleep and just didn't wake up,
Hopkins said Roxy's husband Jeff let his wife sleep in that morning, but when he went into their bedroom to wake her up around noon, she was unresponsive.
He thought she was dead.rnHopkins doesn't know the family well.
I've met Roxy twice, she said.
When she heard of their plight, however, it touched her heart.
She enlisted some help and began collecting donations for the family by placing fundraising cans in local businesses with a picture of Roxy and a short description of the situation.
On Christmas Eve I picked up over $700, Hopkins said.
There were also donations of gifts for the Pattisons' eight and 12-year-old boys.
Jeff is a seasonal worker who hasn't been able to find work, although he did say he is now doing some construction for someone he knows.
He expressed a deep gratitude to Hopkins and to the community of Osoyoos, for the generosity showed to his family.
For Hopkins, reaching out to help the troubled family was a no-brainer.
They're just the sweetest people you'll ever meet, she said. I wish there was more I could do.
Roxy was released from the hospital on New Year's Eve and Jeff is hoping the date will be good luck.
It's definitely a better start (to the year) than the end of (last year), he said.
Now that Roxy has been released from the hospital, Jeff said she's gone to Alberta to spend some time with her ailing father.
He said she's up and around, if a bit weak, but there are still a lot of questions to be answered.
They still don't know what was wrong with her, he said. It's pretty scary. They said as far as they could figure it was some type of viral infection or something.
An Interior Health spokeswoman declined commenting on Roxy's condition for confidentiality reasons and because we don't want to get into the sort of generalities about what could and couldn't cause this, it's too vague.rnHopkins doesn't know what went wrong in Roxy's body either, but she knows what went right, and she didn't hesitate to call the situation as she saw it.
It was just a total miracle, she said.
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