DisabledBro&SisKindlyRequestUrHelp

Dear Friends and Kind Strangers,

First, let me just get something out of the way. I don't like to ask for help, especially that of the financial variety. I have put off launching this campaign for months, because the thought of it was so unbearably uncomfortable, awkward, and honestly, filled me with a tremendous amount of shame. It is not how my father raised me. I was taught that when you faced a difficulty, you just pulled yourself up by your own bootstraps. But recently, someone pointed out to me, that it's literally impossible to completely pull up your own bootstraps, while you're standing in the boots, without leaning on someone (or something) for support. So, although I'm still horrified to beg for money, please know that I would never do so, if I wasn't absolutely desperate, and hadn't tried everything else first. I truly feel I have no other choice. So, I will just close my eyes, lean in, and learn to accept support from others.

I know that many of you literally have no funds to give. You're barely scraping by yourself. This is something I truly understand. So, here's my one rule for this campaign. We will never speak of this campaign. I don't ever want this money thing to come between us. I am so grateful to have your support in so many other ways, and a hug, quite frankly is always better than money in my book (just not in the County Assessor's book, or the DWP's book, or any of those people who want their bills paid, plus I've found that SoCalGas Co. gives very unfulfilling hugs).

Sorry, if the following is too much information. But if I was going to invest in someone, I would want to have all the facts. My brother, Daniel and I, are blessed in so many ways. We both are lucky enough to have medical insurance, thanks to Medi-cal. I will never go hungry thanks to Food Stamps, and we inherited a home in a nice neighborhood. However, the home did not come with it's own trust fund.

Unfortunately, my brother and I have hit some large stumbling blocks, that make it impossible for us to currently pay for our upkeep. For those of you who don't know, my brother has a degenerative muscular disease, Myotonic Dystrophy, an adult onset form of muscular dystrophy. He has a leg brace, and had to have a pace maker put in due to his disease. For years, he walked with a cane, but then started falling, often. A couple of times a week, we had to call the paramedics to lift him up off the floor, as I did not have the strength to do so. After months of this, and getting to know all the paramedics by name, he took a bad fall that broke his hip. He had surgery, and went into a skilled nursing facility for rehab. Due to his muscular dystrophy, his rehab has been much more challenging than a healthy person's would be.

I was diagnosed with Fibromyalgia years ago, but was able to function pretty well for quite a long time. While I do have the pain that is commonly associated with Fibro, the main component of my illness is what is referred to as Fibro fatigue. However, "fatigue" is really not an accurate term. Bone crushing, mind numbing exhaustion is more like it. Like my brother's disease, my illness has been on a rapid decline over the last several years. What causes this extreme exhaustion? As do many people with Fibro, I suffer from non restorative sleep. We sleep, but our bodies skip right over the 3rd (or 4th) phase of sleep, where all the recharging, and restorative sleep takes place. I wake up feeling just as exhausted, as when I went to bed. I have been sleeping like this since at least 1999, so you can imagine the cumulative effect this has had on my body. My cognitive and memory skills have been severely affected (in Fibro, this is referred to as "brain fog"). This was why I had to quit working full time at my administrative job. My brain just doesn't work properly any more. Things have gotten so bad, that just doing a couple of pet sitting jobs a day is like running a marathon. I can barely make it through a day. And if a client has stairs, I'm out for the rest of the day. Things are bad. Really, really bad. I am in the process of applying for disability, but unfortunately, there is a still a lot of ignorance out there regarding my illness, and even with an attorney, I'm headed into a very, very long fight.

With the petsitting that I'm able to do currently, I only bring in a couple of hundred dollars a month, if I'm lucky, and don't have to cancel due to my severe exhaustion, and "brain fog". For many years, although not easy, we were able to scrap by, thanks to Daniel's disability check every month (and my father, while he was alive, helped out a small amount every month). However, recently, Social Security stopped Daniel's check (and is asking him to pay back over $6,000), as he has been in the nursing home too long. Apparently, they don't expect him to still have expenses while he's recovering. I am now responsible for paying his bills, as well as my own.

We may have a home, but its very difficult on my income to keep that home running. I try and scrimp, and save in every way I can. I wear a head lamp at night, to save on electricity. For a few weeks, when the kitchen faucet literally broke off in my hands, I toted water into the kitchen using a small tub. But it's the property taxes that concern me the most. My brother and I lucked into a much discounted tax rate due to Prop 13, but it's still $1800 a year. That's an impossible dream for us right now.

I know what you're all screaming at the screen right now - SELL THE DAMN HOUSE! I wish it was that easy. Cleaning up this house to sell, in my current condition will take me quite some time. Clearing out 52 years of stuff alone (not to mention there was a hoarding gene that my brother got in the worst possible way) would be a challenge to even the healthiest of folks.

All we're asking for at this point, is enough funds to keep us in this house for another two and a half years (or take care of any emergencies that will no doubt arise).  We are so grateful that a few very kind people have raised enough funds to pay for a year's property tax payment.  I have rcently discovered that due to a special proposition, if we don't sell the house until 2019, we will be able to keep our current property tax rate, and transfer it to our new residence.  If we sell before, we would never be able to afford  the very high "regular" property tax rate.  

I don't want to be a burden on anyone (that includes the state). I wish I was physically able to go back to a regular job. I miss feeling like I'm a participating member of this thing, we call life. Unfortunately, it's just not possible for my body to do so.

Finally, please know that GoFundMe does not charge you anything for donating. They just take a small percentage of your donated amount.

Thank you so very much for reading all of this. I am blessed to have all of you in my life.

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