As surgery bills and eviction loom, SLO County burn patient asks for help to return home
Sherry Hilber, a former Cambria resident, wants nothing more than to finally heal from serious burns and recent breast cancer surgeries.
But before Hilber comes home to the Central Coast town she loves so much, she has some other battles to fight.
Troubles facing her include the threat of eviction, the resignation of her longtime nurse and having no money with which to address those and other issues.
They’re all converging as the COVID-19 pandemic continues to make her situation even more difficult.
Hilber said via email and Facebook recently that management at the UCLA-affiliated Tiverton House, is trying, again, to evict her, saying she’s stayed beyond the 30-day residence limit.
The veteran TV network executive has been at Tiverton House since December 2018, as she heals from deep burns she incurred that May during a fire. The blaze destroyed the small home in Cambria she was renting along with everything Hilber owned.
Tiverton House provides housing for people undergoing critical, regular treatments at the Ronald Reagan UCLA Medical Center.
Management at the lodging unit tried to evict her in 2019, but eventually delayed the action. Now, they’ve resumed those legal actions, which was up for judge’s review on Feb. 10.
But Hilber has other immediate concerns.
On Feb. 5, she underwent a second surgery, this one to combat infection that was threatening to turn into sepsis, stemming from her Jan. 28 mastectomy. She was also expecting to learn pathology results that would dictate her future cancer treatment, perhaps including chemotherapy and/or radiation treatments.
Hilber also learned Feb. 5 that the nurse who has been caring for her for eight months was resigning — leaving the patient with no support system beyond friends who keep in contact electronically, restricted by the coronavirus pandemic.
Perhaps the most draining worry Hilber faces is her serious lack of funds that she’ll need to support herself in the short term, and then, finally, to return to Cambria to heal, preferably in a furnished rental home.
Hilber said her modest Social Security benefits simply don’t cover her past and upcoming expenses. “I do not quality for unemployment, grants and other federal funding. I am someone who falls within the cracks,” she said, someone who “needs a lifeline.”
Those who wish to help get Hilber can donate via her GoFundMe fundraiser at https://gofund.me/31a2d785.
Hilber went online to describe her love affair with Cambria, saying, “I have never belonged anywhere else so much.”
“I left a high paying career in prime-time TV with all of my financial needs fully met,” said Hilber, who worked on TV shows including “Roseanne” and “Home Improvement.” “I was not seeking friends or running from a troubled past. It was a free, in-love-with-Cambria choice that I have never regretted.”
The small coastal town is “where I wish to return and remain,” she said.
Hilber is expected to remain in the hospital for observation into the second week of February, but her future beyond that is uncertain given Tiverton House’s ongoing legal actions to remove her.
If the eviction happens, Hilber said, she doesn’t have anyplace else to go.
If her recovery goes as hoped and planned, she hopes by spring that “my career as a veteran primetime network creative exec” should provide her with a “stable financial income when I return to my career at writers’ workshops for networks and studios,” which have been “shut down due to (the) pandemic.”
Hilber also anticipates having additional work as a TV script story analyst and graduate-level theater arts programs teacher educating students who want careers writing for episodic television.
She’ll also continue her volunteer work for the charity she founded, RxLaughter.org.
It teaches children and other patients to “learn the power of laughter and humor a form of medicine in treatments, especially to manage their pain,” Hilber wrote on her GoFundMe page. “Little did I know that I would have to face the most devastating challenges in my own life that would require every ounce of humor just to help me survive.”
Eventually, Hilber also hopes to write a book and series “about my trauma and rebirth from prime-time honcho to homeless, to finding values, loss (through) trauma and final stage of courage to endure health issues, surgeries, mortality, regrowth of deep friendships amidst pandemic” and er return to Cambria and the Moonstone Beach area, which she considers to be her primary source of emotional strength.
Tiverton House
According to Phil Hampton, communications director for UCLA Health, said “Tiverton House offers temporary accommodations for the convenience of patients and the families of patients and is not intended to serve as a long-term place of residence.”
“Due to laws governing patient privacy, we are unable to publicly discuss whether a specific person is a guest or the circumstances of his or her stay at Tiverton House,” Hampton wrote via email.
In 2019, when The Tribune reached out to Hampton about Hilber’s case and the hotel’s management of it, Hampton said that “Tiverton House policy is that guests who do not live within 100 miles of UCLA may check in three days before their UCLA medical appointment and shall check out three days after such appointment, with 29 days being the maximum length of stay.”
“Our desire is for Tiverton House to allow patients and their families to focus on healing during times of prolonged treatments and medical emergencies,” Hampton said then. “When patients express extenuating circumstances, we consider extending stays beyond the 29-day maximum referenced in their registration paperwork.”
