Sometimes we are faced with tons of struggles. Those of us
with chronic illness and especially invisible ones we are told not to stress
ourselves out, mostly because stress causes more pain, more complications and
much more. Actually, what is more difficult than stress is the cost of the
disease, monetary costs. It starts with
the price of drugs, price of doctor visits, price of supplements, and price of
hospital stays.
Being sick isn’t fun, but financially it hurts worse. When
my daughter was born we had enough (or so we thought) money for her delivery.
But when there was complications things got a little more expensive. When she
didn’t take to nursing and was allergic to all over the counter formula we had
to go purchase the most expensive formula on the market, which wasn’t covered
by insurance. Even still we had tons of doctor visits, specialists, and more.
The amount we paid out of pocket kept rising and we just were not prepared for
this. I know there are many of you financial planners that would say you should
of known better. But at the point of having our daughter we were just doing
good at paying off our debt and keeping a good budget. This situation set us
back and at the same time we didn’t know we qualified for any financial
assistance. Since we didn’t qualify for the state’s assistance we had no idea
that there were more options with the hospital and clinic. Things weren’t
looking good, but then we got a couple of breaks and finally we could see the light.
Then I got sick and my husband had to go by ambulance to the ER twice. We just
weren’t prepared for it all.
The stress of finances makes our illness worse. I can even
tell with my husband when he is stress his blood sugar goes up. For me I get more pain, which just puts me in
bed longer. Honestly there has been days that we didn’t even know if we have
enough gas or groceries. But thankfully we have had friends and family that
have helped us. We couldn’t of done it without them. For a long time we were
silently suffered together as a family because we were embarrassed. We talked
to financial counselors and many said we weren’t that bad. Which understandable
compared to others we weren’t, but we weren’t moving forward or getting better.
I couldn’t forgive myself. I was and still am hard on myself, blaming myself
for the dumb mistakes and the use of credit cards to pay medical bills and
groceries for all of special allergies.
I honestly don’t feel like I deserve any help from anyone. I
feel like I should be the one giving help because in truth compared to most of
the world I am in much better shape, which I am grateful for the blesses we
have. Still in so many ways I want less, I need less, but getting healthy is
still so expensive. Why do I have to try to explain myself to everyone about why
we made certain choices? Why can’t I just be okay with the fact the past is the
past and we made the mistakes and we are trying are upmost to be better. It
isn’t just an easy fix. I can’t just get a job and go back to work to solve the
problem. I have to think of my health and our daughter too. I know people
around us are problem solvers and want to help us out. All I want is someone to
forgive me for the mistakes and still love us no matter if we forget to send a
letter or call. Money comes with strings, no matter how hard we try for it not
to. I watched my parents constantly struggle with needed support from churches
and people. And even though the support they got was for them to live, not just
do “missions work” it was still very difficult to do fun activities without us
keeping it a secret from family and friends. I grew up thinking money came with
attachments even though we would give money freely to local churches or people
without expecting anything in return. Why can’t I expect that of myself? I
would so much rather give away money to many others than be a receiver, but
right now in our life we need to be receivers. We do not feel deserving of it.
And there are been so many that have unselfishly given us to help us through
these difficult times. Also I do believe that the gifts from friends and family
do not have strings attached. It is only my embarrassment that puts strings on
the money. I promise that one day I will be able to pay it forward even if
today I can give unused toys to a new international friend. I always need to
remember that paying it forward doesn’t have to be anything big.
We are still being surprised by what God wants to do through
this situation. I wouldn’t want anyone to go through what we had to
financially, physically, and emotionally. So if all our mistakes help others
not do what we did then it is all worth it. Right now my voice is to write,
maybe a little too honest than some people want to hear, but honesty needs to
be heard. So many of us hide behind the difficulty because we are afraid, which
we did too. But all it did was get us deeper in debt and hurt. We never knew
how large of a family and friends we had until we opened up and shared our
story. Being honest has been the best decision for us. I pray that our story can
help someone today!
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