It's just sinking in for a Dartmouth mother that a home invasion last week left her teenager a quadriplegic.

Ashley MacLean Kearse, 18, was paralyzed from the chest down when she was shot at an Arklow Drive home last Sunday by intruders wearing bandanas. Four young men around her age were arrested.

The bullet went through MacLean Kearse​'s spinal cord, says her mother, Wendy Kearse. She is still in the intensive care unit and can't breathe on her own or talk.

However, ​MacLean Kearse​ is determined to graduate in 2015 and go to her prom, on schedule, says Kearse.

Her family is beginning to learn what they'll need to do to help her come home several months from now, including buying a house and tens of thousands of dollars' worth of equipment.

"She has good days and she has bad days. She cheers up when her friends come in," said Kearse.

"We've seen her in her wheelchair for the first time today, which was pretty hard, and she hates it."

Friend of Rehtaeh Parsons

MacLean Kearse has very limited use of her hands, and she will go to rehab to regain some movement in her arms, said Kearse.

"We'll need a van with a lift. She'll need a wheelchair, and I really don't know what else because it's just so new," she said.

Ashley, who was a friend of Rehtaeh Parsons, is known for her close-knit social circle and for her love of music, said her mother.

"She always has her headphones on, dancing down the street. That's what everyone says, 'I can just picture her with her headphones on and dancing, just doing silly dances,'" she said.

Kearse has three other children at home and had just started a new job at a hair salon a few days before ​MacLean Kearse was shot. She won't be able to return to work.

This week, a guidance counsellor from Cole Harbour District High School dropped off MacLean Kearse's homework at the hospital, as the student had requested. Kearse plans to read the assignments out loud so her daughter can dictate the answers. For now, the student can only mouth words, but Kearse said she'll get back her voice.

"When I go home for a shower it sinks in. It's worst in the morning when I wake up," said Kearse. "She's determined though.… She's really determined to do her best, to get back whatever she can."

It's worst in the morning when I wake up. - Wendy Kearse

On the instructions of police, Kearse​ won't talk about the circumstances of the shooting except to say more details will come out.

Three 17-year-olds were charged, along with Merkel Jason Downey, 18. Downey represented Nova Scotia as a boxer in the 2011 Canada Games in Halifax, winning gold.

"(Ashley) said to me, when she woke, she said 'I felt myself dying, but I couldn't die, because then they wouldn't know who did this to me,'" said MacLean Kearse.

MacLean Kearse said she wanted the 17-year-olds tried as adults.

"I just hope they get what they deserve," she said.

Kearse's sister-in-law started a GoFundMe crowdfunding account for the family last week, and within about five days it had raised more than $7,000 towards a total goal of $30,000, which was "just a number she picked out of her head," not a reflection of the family's expected costs, said Kearse.

"All the support out there, it's incredible. When something so bad happens, you get angry at the world, pretty much, and with all the support, it's like there's more good people than bad people."