My name is Gina. I am from a small town in the middle of nowhere KY. And I am 29 years old. I am married, have been since 2013. And we have a son who was born in 2015. Last year, I got sick. Sick enough for me to be in the hospital in quarantine for about 27 days. During this time I wasn’t allowed to work obviously. And I didn’t get to go back until about 2 weeks after I was released from the hospital. My husband was also not allowed to work the first 17 days of all of this. Because at the time, it was believed that I had Covid. So he and our son were also quarantined.
After multiple tests, I was diagnosed with a viral pneumonia in both lungs, an infection in my bloodstream, sepsis and a “possible false negative on Covid test”.
Let me start by saying, that before I went to the hospital that night our life was good. We both worked. We could afford things when we needed them. We had our own place, a huge yard, no neighbors for miles. We had 2 dogs, a dachshund mix named Droop and a great dane named Aurora. Life was good. We didn’t have it all, but we had enough.
But, when I got out of the hospital, we went back home for the first time. My husband and son had quarantined with my parents. When we went homeour water heater had busted causing a lot of damage to our flooring and some of our water pipes. A window had somehow been busted. We quickly got to work on trying to fix those things. When the workers got there to fix them we were told that our mobile home wasn’t properly insulated and that needed to be done and that it looked as if almost all of our ductwork under the trailer needed to be replaced because something had torn it up. On top of that our oven ended up going out. We had just used the last bit of our savings to pay our electric bill that was due for the month I was in the hospital and the past months bill that was due at the time I went in which was $796. We had nothing left. So I had to make a decision that day to move in with my parents until we could get the trailer fixed. After getting an estimate, it was obvious that it was gonna take more time than what we had to repair it. So we ended up staying with my parents for a few months. But we had to move. The only thing we could find in our area was an apartment. 2 bedrooms. 1 bath. Way different from the 4 bedroom, 2 bath trailer with the swingset and trampoline outside in the fenced in yard for my son and dogs to play in. It was an adjustment. The most difficult part was the fact that having to do what was best for our son meant moving into this apartment, that doesn’t allow pets. We were forced to rehome our great dane who we’d had for over 2 years. My mother kept Droop, but she couldn’t keep both of them as she already had dogs of her own. And let’s face it, a great dane isn’t exactly the cheapest dog to take care of. The transition was especially difficult for my son at first. He liked being outdoors and he loved Aurora. See, our son is in the process of being tested for autism. And aurora was essentially his best friend. They were always together. And you could just tell that they had this bond. She was so gentle and loving towards him. He still asks about when he’s going to get to see her and its been months. It breaks my heart every time.
We thought moving into the apartment would help us save money. Help us save for a bigger place. But thats when the medical bills started rolling in. I was informed at the hospital that I’d be given an emergency medical card, it’d take care of my bills and my post care bills. Keep in mind, at this point we have $0 in our account. After we get into the apartment I am informed that since I didn’t get a positive result in testing for covid I was denied the emergency medical card. So now I have over $4000 in medical bills that I am making monthly payments on. I have my loan payment for our vehicles. I have all of our bills to pay. We done our taxes this year and ended up owing state and federal. So we are making payments on federal every month. But as you can see from the picture we still owe state. I have 3 teeth that need to be removed. I had to stop taking my anxiety medication and my sleeping pills, because I can’t afford the prescriptions right now.
My sons birthday is coming up. And he’s wanting it done in Peter Pan. And right now none of this looks like its even gonna be possible. And after everything that he’s ended up having to go through, I feel like we need to give him at least a good birthday. But if I do that then bills don’t get paid and we end up getting even more behind.
I don’t typically ask for help. And I’m not saying its a bad thing. I’ve just never really had to. I tried to apply for a medical card and even EBT but we weren’t qualified for either. My husband is a janitor and I’m an assistant manager. I make nearly $350 a week and he makes $500 twice a month. So my checks go to the bills and his normally go to the things we need. But we’re using them all to just try to get caught up. If I could even just get one of our loans caught up as they’re both nearly paid off. Or get the irs paid off. I know I could get back on my feet. Its just the catching up part thats hard.
Thank you for reading this. If you can give, thank you. If you can’t, believe me, I get it.
paypal.me/GCaneer