The Breaking Point
As a family why are we just now going public on something we have been battling
for the last 5 years? I was recently asked by a close friend and peer, "What happened?
I thought things were going okay and now your totally defeated and asking for help.
I thought things were okay?".
Boy this is a tough question and I think that my answers won't make a lot of sense
unless you have been through something really hard like this. I think that human
nature is to survive and humans are largely used to surviving on their own. The
way our society works you go to school and pass or fail on your own merrit. You
figure out how to do certain things on your own and as human beings we are self-sufficient.
This predisposes us to make poor decisions especially in situations where we don't
have correct or adequate information to make a good decision.
From the day Katie was born we have been told, "It's short term." , "This won't
last long. She'll have a surgery and go home in a week.", "She will only need the
feeding tube for 6 months and then we'll take it out." Those statements and others
like them always led us to believe that we'd be moving on from this situation in
short time. We are only now starting to realize that this isn't simple, quick or
anything we were ever lead to think it was.
Compound her situation with the other challenges we've had to face and you begin
to understand why it's taken us 5 years to be able to finally ask for help. A family
trying to keep a child like Katie alive has enough on it's hands to begin with.
Throw losing your job and your home into the mix and you've now got some problems
that are going to take some time to fix. Inevitably we dumped every assett we had
into trying to get back on our feet which included the 401K I had from working at
Micron. The severance package I got when I was laid off and we were out of money
pretty fast.
Have we been irresponsible with our money and has this lead us to our current situation?
No I don't believe so. I believe we made some really stupid mistakes like me trying
to go to school after being laid off but when I think about that we didn't have
other choices at the time. There was not any work to be found even if we had moved.
What factors contributed to the debt we now have? Well certainly caring for Katie
is part of it. Complications of losing your job and your home can be added in and
then top it all with having to start your own business and try to make ends meet
the best you can. Our
first bill from the hospital for Katie was massive. Add that to the fact that I had only enrolled
Katie for dental insurance and we had some real problems real fast. We worked out
the insurance part and most of that first bill was covered. But there was a lot
that wasn't covered. Most forms of insurance do not cover formula as it's considered
nutrition. Whent he formula you are feeding your daughter is $1 per ounce it adds
up pretty quickly. Feel free to investigate pricing on Pregistimil by Infamil and
Peptamin Jr. by Nestle. You'll find neither of those two products fall within the
budget for most families. For the first year of her life Katie was taking 17 different
medications, some covered by insurance and some not covered. She threw most of them
up and so we had to buy more on a regular basis.
I'm not going to tell you we owe $1,000,000 because we don't but I will tell you
that it's a monthly payment approaching $5000. So you ask yourself, "How on earth
did you get that much debt and not get help sooner?" all I can say is living this
experience has been amazing and things have happened so fast and we are just now
to the point where we are realizing that we are in a situation we cannot escape
from without help. I've worked 80 to 100 hour work weeks for the last 3 years and
have kept us mostly current but dry spells of no income lasting 90 to 120 days haven't
helped. I just cannot keep working those hours. Not if I want to try and get Katie
somewhere where she can be helped. Not if I want to have any kind of relationship
at all with my children. Not if I want to have a marriage that doesn't explode somewhere
after the 12 year mark which we just completely missed while I was in the hospital
and bed with back spasms.
So how much money do we need? I honestly don't have an answer. We need to pay off
our current debt and then we need money to pay for furhter medical care and research
into Katie's problem. I have received about %3 of what we need to pay off our debt
as of 6/22/2007. So we have a long ways to go. Getting that debt out of the way
might make it feasible for us to pay out of pocket for the rest of Katie's care
but I cannot see that far ahead to know. So what this really boils down to is after
reading all of this do you file like making a contribution to our cause and helping
out? Utlimately that's what needs to be answered. How much we owe, how much Katie's
care will cost and other questions are important but what matters most is do you
want to get involved? We could really use your help, no matter who you are and where
you are from. We won't turn it down and we'll be thankful to have gotten it.