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Transplant survivor, single mom, suffers devastating flood damage to home

By and David Komer online producer
Updated  July 3, 2021 12:34am EDT
Detroit
FOX 2 Detroit

DETROIT (FOX 2) - A single mom is hoping for another miracle after floodwaters ravaged her house, leaving it unsafe to live there.

FOX 2 first introduced you to Sonya Cook years ago, sharing how she was saved by the Gift of Life. Now she's keeping the faith and asking for help.

Woman with compromised immune system dealing with devastating flood damage to home

The water rushed into Sonya Cook's basement and rose during last weekend's torrential downpour. Now, the water is gone, but the mold and damage remain.

The putrid scent from her basement can be smelled outside after last weekend's flood left it devastated.

"You can literally taste the stench," she said. "I don’t know how else to explain it you can taste the stench."

Her basement was left muddy, mildewed, and now, moldy.

"It just picked up things and just floated them," she said.

Cook can’t live in her Detroit home right now, because the sewage and mold could be hazardous to her health.

"My immune system is compromised due to a transplant."

She won’t risk it for herself or her daughter. Cook knows what it’s like to be on the edge of life and death.

Almost 20 years ago, she was hit with kidney disease just as she found out she was pregnant with Naia. FOX 2 spoke with Cook about that back in 2019

Somehow she pulled through. Giving birth prematurely to Naia, but her kidneys would eventually completely fail.

"I cried, my baby was in the NIC unit, she was one pound one ounce, she was born at 23 weeks," Cook said. "I thought what am I going to do. I prayed and I prayed. I said I’m going to fight."

FOX 2 also told you about Julie Elster, whose 2-year-old was dying around the same time Cook needed a transplant  Elster donated the little girl's kidneys to Sonya after the child passed, and that’s why Cook is alive today.

"My daughter was 2 at the time and laying beside me," Cook said. "I couldn’t understand how I could take two kidneys from a 2-year-old baby, but I looked at my child and I knew it would be okay."

And that’s what Cook is doing now, relying on her faith. She set up a GoFundMe and is trying to get help to clean everything up so it’s safe for her and Naia, who is now 18, to move back in.  

"I’ve been in hotel rooms, I’ve been in a car, it is just too much," she said.

"Trying to keep up my mental health and trying to support my mom as well," Naia said.

It’s been one thing after another for the single mom.

"I just left an abusive relationship," Cook said. "I came back here to start over and now this.  I have faith, and I know that God will make a way."

DONATE: If you would like to help, go HERE to give to the GoFundMe.

Cook, unfortunately, got a call from her doctor saying that her platelet levels are low and dropping.

Currently, she and her daughter are staying in a hotel with the help of the Red Cross. She said she is not giving up and that she’ll keep fighting to regain her home.