In 2020, I started with excruciating back pain which led to a diagnosis of 4 herniated discs, a pinched nerve, flattened spinal cord, degenerative disc disease, and arthritis from C1 all the way through to my sacroiliac joint. My doctors worked up a treatment plan and I was doing well, resuming my normal life, and got a job with USPS. I was a productive member of society again!
In June of 2021 my husband was in a car accident which resulted in a shoulder injury as well as a diagnosis of Thoracic Outlet Syndrome. This took over a year to diagnose due to a conflict between the shoulder orthopedic doctor and the spine doctor. Once we had a clear diagnosis, he could be scheduled for surgery (in all of this time he has not been able to work and we were living off of 1 income). We cut back expenses as far as we could to stay afloat.
In July of 2023, I was involved in an accident where the driver ran a stop sign and t-boned my car. That stable back condition? No longer stable. We are now in the end of March and I have driven once. I am now not allowed to drive until they find the nerve that is causing my right leg to go numb. If I can’t feel my leg, I can’t drive, and since I drive for the post office as a mail carrier, I can not return to work yet.
If all of this wasn’t enough, during the testing on my back (specifically the MRI of my sacroiliac joint) there was an incidental finding of a 5 cm pelvic mass. So in December I had a laparoscopic procedure to remove the mass, my left ovary, and both of my fallopian tubes (had a partial hysterectomy when I was 26 – 14 years ago). However, when my doctor went in to do this surgery, he was unable to complete as there was scar tissue that had grown and was attacking my organs. It was webbed throughout my pelvic cavity to the point where he couldn’t even visualize my reproductive organs, it was growing on my bladder, ureter, my intestines, and had almost reached my kidneys. At this point, my doctor closed me up and abandoned my procedure. I was then sent to a GYN Oncologist who specializes in the difficult cases, such as mine. Fast forward to March and I go in for the robotic surgery to deal with the mess of my insides. Surgery was a success, removals went amazing. The trouble started after they were finished. When it was time to extubate me, I aspirated. They re-intubated me and when they extubated me again I crashed. I was clinically dead for 3 minutes. After they got my heart started again, I was sent to ICU in critical, unstable condition. They didn’t wake me up until the following morning and had to make sure I was breathing on my own before they turned off the machine that had been breathing for me for 14 hours. So a procedure that was supposed to be outpatient earned me a 4 day hospital stay. Fast forward 2 weeks and I am in so much pain my husband took me to the emergency room, resulting in another 3 day hospital stay with a pelvic infection from the surgery.
So now we have reached a point where my husband is out of work (still waiting for his surgery), I am out of work, we have maxed out all of our credit cards, and unable to make even the minimum payments. We have burned through our savings and are in dire need. We literally have nothing left. Both of our cars are about to be repossessed due to none payment, we have already extended our credit on our mortgage and they won’t give us another. With our medical issues, we can not end up homeless and we just need to get through the next 3 months. My healing time is 3 months and my husband’s surgery is in 2 weeks with his healing time as 6 months. If I can just heal, and get my back sorted then I can get back to work and be OK again.
For those of you wondering about any settlement from the car accidents, the insurance companies and our lawyer are negotiating both of our settlements but neither one of the separate accident insurance companies wants to give us an amount that will even cover our medical bills let alone anything else, so settlements are not going to come in enough time.
We just need a break. Creditor and lenders won’t give us that, we’ve tried.
Thank you
Stephanie
Paypal: paypal.me/ssaify5466