I don't even know where to start. For the last 6 years my family has been battered by a series of storms, one right after the other. My husband and I will have been married 12 years this June. We are a blended family; I was a single mom raising a son and he had a son and a daughter from a previous marriage. We got married, and a year later our daughter was born. Shortly after, we moved into our first home- For the first time in my very unstable life I felt safe and settled. We had lived there almost a year when the first storm hit- It began when I first heard the word tumors and found out I would have to have a partial hysterectomy. I had the surgery, but there were complications and I lost 8 weeks off work. During the same time my husband was injured on the job and lost several days off work. We got 2 months behind in our house payments, and were a day away from finalizing a refinance to catch up when someone at country wide( our mortgage company) that we had never met got on the computer saw that we were 2 months behind, and put us into foreclosure without even checking the status of what was being done to rectify it. We lost our home the 30,000 down payment and spiraled into a pit of debt, We moved into a very small rental which resembled a storage unit and attempted to work our way out of it. I had been working as a preschool teacher for about 4 months when several of our toddlers came down with mono which of course I ended up with and missed another 8 weeks of work. During that time at a routine drs visit, my Dr saw a mole on my chest that that she didn't like the look of; she took it off that day and the next day I received a call it was malignant melanoma and they ended up having to cut off a portion of my breast. Fortunately it had not spread deeper into the tissue or I would not be sitting here typing this. I went back to work again thinking nothing else could possibly go wrong, then one day I was injured at work protecting a child. And all hell broke loose. We were required to fill out an accident form and file a mandatory workman's comp claim. I wasn't worried about it. My employers loved my work and often used me to mentor other teachers find solutions for classroom problems. They knew I was honest, and several other teachers had witnessed the accident. I trusted the process to work towards a speedy resolution. What followed was a nightmare that lasted over 2 years. SAIF and my employers implemented a plan of systematic destruction and my family was forced into a level of poverty beyond any I had ever known. We had no defense,the laws didn't protect me and didn't apply to them. I lost 30 pounds in one month saving food for my kids while waiting for my case to be approved, at 62 days past my accident is was denied. It took four doctors telling them it was clearly work related (one of them was their own ) to get them to reverse their decision. I was thrown into their "managed care system" and when they finally did surgery, they operated on the symptom of shoulder impingement instead of addressing the disc in my neck. When I continued to have problems, they sent me to a neurologist whose diagnosis was that the initial injury was to my neck, In his report he wrote that because the initial injury was never addressed, I had developed permanent nerve damage in my neck and my right arm. My case was closed that week as their managed care dr decided I was stationary. I could have fought it. got another lawyer, but it had destroyed my faith in the basic goodness of people and taken my ability to trust.
In the midst of this, my son became very depressed. He had been diagnosed with learning disabilities in speech and language. School was a nightmare of brutal teasing and isolation. He would come home in tears and ask me "I try so hard,...why can't I have a friend?" It was heart breaking because there was nothing I could do to make it better and unfortunately things never changed for him. After he graduated life was nothing but a string a dead end jobs and lay offs because the economy in Oregon was so bad. He was depressed and suicidal. Then one day I turned on a talk show and there was a mother in tears and her son, and they were telling our story. That was the first time I heard the word Asperger's syndrome. I knew at that moment that my son had been living in a prison of autism, for him the closest he could get to being part of the world around him was to watch it as if through a window with his face pressed against the glass. A short time later it was confirmed... unfortunately it was a diagnosis that came 24 years too late to be eligible to receive the services that might have made his life so very different , and that breaks my heart.
It was also during the same time that we lost our other son in Iraq. He was a Marine stationed in Iraq,had just turned 21 and had only a few months left in his tour. I find it a bit ironic that while he was fighting for freedom in another country, our rights were being stripped away from us at home..
I am unable to work, Even simple "mom things" housework, laundry, anything repetitive I pay for it . Life has become a vicious cycle of trying to get as much as I can done and than waiting until things calm down enough to do it again. I have developed fibromyalgia and the stress of our finances has aged me beyond my 46 years. I don't recognize the face that stares back at me from the mirror. My husband works 2 jobs, is never home and my little girl whose smile used to light up her whole face,and believed she could do anything has gotten swallowed by it all. Her face is serious and sad and she has lost nearly all of her confidence in herself. It breaks my heart. We are all mere shadows of who we used to be.
My husband is working so hard I am afraid that the constant stress of our finances is going to kill us both. Our rent is due on the 5th,and we are painfully short. We have no gorcery money and live vicariously on food boxes, and top ramen. This is nothing new, we have survived like this ever since my accident .Usually we ride the wave of juggling our bills and rationing our food on auto pilot. But this time I had to do something because my husband has never looked so old and tired. His father had to go to the hospital this week , he is in the final stages of Altzheimers and they don't expect him to last long. I can't change our situation, but I can send these words out, and maybe someone will read them and have some idea what the answer is. My husband makes too much to qualify for foodstamps or any other social service programs. My daughter doesn't even qualify for reduced lunch but we can't afford to make her a lunch much of the time.
Our immediate need is that our rent is due on the 5th...1100,00 worth. Once we pay it we will be broke again until next payday, I would love to find a way to take care of our rent at least for this month to take some of the pressure of his shoulders. Can anyone help with this.? Thanks for reading my loooooong story. Very Sincerely, Sandy
time with him, and gas is ridiculously expensive, we have no money for groceries, and
