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porchwood · 5 years

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Okay, here goes. The incredible @everlarkedalways created a GoFundMe to help me out through present circumstances, but before I share that link, I wanted to explain a bit of what’s been going on. I feel awful accepting financial help, in part because I’ve been such a dry well for the past 18 months (I have nothing creative to give back/say “thank you” with) and also because so many of you have previously contributed monies to help me through other crisis points over the past five years (yes, it’s been that long and no, it doesn’t seem to be getting any better). But things are maybe the most desperate they’ve ever been and I really can’t say no to badly needed help.

Because I’m long-winded, I’m going to try to condense this into a simple chronological order. Things have been relentlessly bad since my car accident on December 26, 2013, but this is where the current run really started:

December 2017: The day after Christmas, I went to the ER at 3am with excruciating chest and upper back pain, a bad experience all around (terrible staff, indifferent care). Their best guess was that I’d had an acid reflux attack, something I’d never had before (but have had since, alas :/).

January 2018: The ER bill saga began, and after loads of paperwork/headaches applying for any kind of aid/bill forgiveness, they put me on a payment plan for the $1,343 balance (and yes, that was "after” insurance - Marketplace policies are crap and all they did was “adjust” the total; nothing was covered). Meanwhile, I started taking Lucky to an acupuncturist over an hour’s drive away, desperate to find something to ease her severe separation anxiety (nonstop barking and howling when I was gone, which we have been struggling to treat, with varying degrees of success, for over two years). The sessions were very expensive (around $400 for one month - I had to put them on a credit card that I’m still chipping away at) and actually made her WORSE.

February 2018: The downstairs neighbors left a mildly threatening note about Lucky’s howling - the day before my birthday. In a ridiculous twist of luck, I managed to find a great sitter who only takes little dogs and was (and still is) able to watch Lucky for me as needed, but it cost me $25/day. (At most I would use her two days a week, but you can see how quickly that would add up.) At the same time, I also started administering CBD drops (suggested by our new vet) to Lucks when I had to leave her at home.

July 2018: After increasing the dosage multiple times, I finally started seeing improvement in Lucky’s behavior from a combination of the CBD drops and SAMe, which was huge (note the timespan), but these therapies cost about $100 month. I resolved to make it work somehow.

September 2018: I found out that my workplace had been bought out by an area salon and would be changing hands soon. Shortly thereafter the new owner sent us the employee handbook, which stated that we could not have another job in the same field (many massage therapists in this part of the country work at multiple places as there simply isn’t enough work to go around, especially in the off-season). The new owner was originally okay with me keeping my second job (on-call work at a yoga studio), and then I learned that that position was switching from a subcontractor to an outright rental (I would have to pay up front for the use of the room and possibly make none of it back while having to promote myself as a business), so for several reasons I decided I would leave that second job at the end of October and try to pick up more hours at my “main” job. One bright spot in all this: the downstairs neighbors moved out at the end of the month, but...

October 2018: ...the day after the neighbors moved out, the landlord informed my roommate (a THG fandom friend and content creator) that the owner of our building had sold the property and that we had 30 days to vacate. I can’t even begin to articulate how stressful, expensive, frightening, and exhausting that time was. By the end of October our only real option was a little house approximately 10 miles from town, and miraculously we got ourselves moved out there - to the tune of lots of $$$ and insane energy expenditure.

November 2018: Because I now lived about 20 mins from work and I have to come home at lunchtime to take Lucky out (and give her a booster of anxiety drops), I had to switch to split shifts. If you’ve ever worked split shifts, you will understand why this sucks (you’re never home, you’re always tired, and you never see or spend time with the people you live with). My new boss put me on the schedule for two additional days a week (I initially had just two days a week, period, hence the second job), which initially seemed very promising, but neither myself nor the rest of the staff realized that the new management had an either/or policy when it comes to pay. (This is messy and frustrating to explain, but in a nutshell: instead of getting paid commission for massages and hourly for the rest of your clocked-in time - laundry, desk help, etc - you get paid ONLY commission, i.e., nothing for all the extra things you do, unless the commission divided by hours amounts to less than minimum wage, in which case they pay you minimum wage for the week instead, including for your massage hours. Which is not cool but is, apparently, legal.) So I was driving about an hour a day (20 mins each way, twice, to the tune of about 300 miles/week) just to make minimum wage (we were entering the dead season for massage and I’m the perpetual “second string” therapist anyway, so some weeks I had just four clients in four days :/), which was exhausting and disheartening.

December 2018: Daylight glimmered: my sister (with whom I am extremely close and who I hadn’t seen in a year and a half) flew out to see me after Christmas. A coworker agreed to cover the whole week and a half of her visit for me, and I was a little nervous about taking the time off (unpaid, of course) at such a rotten financial time, but I hadn’t had a vacation of any kind since moving to Maine nor a weekend off since August of 2017. I resolved to be extra frugal during her visit and my work schedule was going to be almost full after she left, so I was pretty sure I could squeak through somehow.

I saw her off on her return trip, and that night I was carrying some dishes down from our living room when I took a very bad fall down the stairs. These are awful, steep “Maine stairs,” and in my fall my left leg shot out through the open side of the staircase and wedged the knee against the bookcase in the dining room below. When I tried to get up I realized that something was very wrong with my knee, and my roommate helped me to bed with ice, a brace, ibuprofen, etc. The following morning I went to the hospital and was directed to the same stupid ER (the last place I ever wanted to go again, but they don’t have urgent care out here and wouldn’t let me just see a GP, so I broke down and cried in admissions). The care I received was middling, if not as bad as on my previous visit, and the nurse-practitioner ordered no weight-bearing for three days, which meant losing the rest of that (desperately needed) work week, and advised following up with orthopedics the next week if the knee wasn’t better.

My wonderful roommate made all kinds of accommodations for my comfort for those three days, and I implemented all the extra therapies I could think of (turmeric, arnica, l-glutamine, Epsom salt soaks, etc). I asked my employers about the possibility of picking up non-massage hours (covering the desk, laundry, etc) but was given the impression that there was nothing for me to do till I could return to massage again. I went to the orthopedic doctor last Thursday and his diagnosis was an MCL (least concerning of the knee ligaments) sprain or tear. I was already strides ahead on his self-care recommendations (getting myself off the crutches, constantly wearing a good brace) and he was supposed to refer me for some PT, but I haven’t heard a peep on that front, and I’m not particularly concerned because, Lord knows, my insurance probably wouldn’t pay for that anyway. He estimated 4 weeks to full recovery but I’m determined to get back to work before that.

So, here’s where we’re at: I’m out of work at the worst time of year, and at the very least, I’ll lose 2.5 weeks of pay (on top of the planned week I took off, plus Christmas and New Year’s were unpaid holidays). Because we live in Maine where everyone has beastly heating fuel, even in a decently insulated house (as I believe this one to be), it costs us around $350 a month to keep the place at 58 degrees through the winter months. (Yes, 58 degrees. 60 if we’re splurging.)

My credit cards are maxed out from car repairs and copious Lucky expenses (including an emergency vet visit - she ended up being fine but it was one of those things that happens after hours/over a weekend and you really shouldn’t wait several days to have checked out).

Oh, and just for fun, our January rent payment got lost in the mail. The landlord was very nice about it and we promptly sent out a replacement, but this meant paying $35 for a stop-payment on the missing check (did I mention that I had to buy checks, to the tune of almost $30, just for paying rent?).

Those of you who have already donated: you are quite literally keeping me going right now. You covered Lucky’s rabies booster yesterday and refills of her food and supplements (all of which, naturally, were running out at the same time), and Lucky is absolutely the reason I’m still alive, so her care honestly means more to me than my own.

I have no idea what my medical bills will look like at this point. I’m assuming the ER visit will be around $1000, and I’m sure the orthopedic visit will be up there somewhere too. As soon as bills start coming in I’ll apply for aid (or, likelier than not, a payment plan), but in order to do that they’re going to want my new tax returns, which means I’m going to have to get my taxes done (probably in Feb) just to find out what my ultimate medical expenses will be. (I used to do my own taxes cheaply through TaxAct, but I was a subcontractor for part of the year, which complicates things and means having to pay someone $$$ to do them this round. I may actually owe on my taxes this year, which is terrifying.)

The healing has been going well overall and I’m hoping to be able to go back to work next week, but I don’t want to assume my knee will oblige. To add insult to injury, I just got hammered with a terrible cold (the kind that levels you in bed), so my body is triaging itself and I’m not sure which is going to get the care first. Surprisingly enough, Lucky’s being a great little nurse, but recovery is a difficult and very lonely process, especially when you get saddled with illness on top of injury.

Anyway, sorry for the ramble. I’ve been reluctant to talk about the miserable past year, but in light of the fact that I’m receiving (and, I guess, asking for :/ ) help, I thought you should know what’s been going on. Thanks for listening and blessings on your day. <3

#bad stuff #gofundme

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