Aid for Haig-O'Connor Family

Hi, everyone, my name is Megan and I am setting up this go fund me for our dear friends the Haig-O’Connor family Tresha, Natalie, Logan, and the cats Midas, Sam and Jenny aka #Treshalie. If you know them you know they are not ones to ask for help and as many of us do struggle to feel worthy of receiving it.

To try and loop you all in I will give a summary of what has occurred to lead us here. Please know this is not a woes me, feel sorry for us.

Natalie has been needing to use a wheelchair and needing someone to push it. We think it is POTS (Postural Orthostatic Tacky Cardia Syndrome) but do not have an official diagnosis as it is rare, not many doctors are educated on it, and tests are hard to get and costly. Natalie almost got to have one test in Buffalo last year (we do not live in Buffalo so it meant a few hours travel to get there) only to find out the day of that insurance would not cover it. The short description of this condition is like your body is exercising all the time and “simple” activities like standing, walking, changing position can greatly spike the heart rate and cause the person to fall and pass out – hence the wheelchair.

On December 2 - Natalie lost her job. The circumstances are what I call suspicious (in that I do not believe the reasons given were accurate and it was just an excuse to discriminate).

December 5 - Tresha had a second spinal surgery to evict the stabby stabby. As many of us know Tresha is on disability with multiple health conditions. One of the big ones is the dreaded “stabby stabby” (her terminology) for a debilitating and excruciating back pain. It seems to be aggravated by movement and activities of daily life (house chores, cooking, self-care etc.) and I can speak from experience that when your body dictates what you can and cannot do under threat of pain it is maddening to say the least. After years of investigating and trial and error a spinal surgery that implanted an electrode device was the most effective at keeping stabby stabby at bay. However, this fall it stopped working and it was discovered that the leads had become dislodged, and another surgery was needed to fix it. Both surgeries have meant weeks of bed rest and pain while she recovers.

December 31 – yes New Years Eve included double boobie biopsies. While Tresha was and still is recovery from the second spinal surgery, she was also going through a cancer scare. Just before the surgery she had a mammogram which required double ultrasounds and then needed double biopsies. It was concerning enough that they had to find a compromise in time between getting the biopsies done and balancing healing from spine surgery.

January 4 – the dreaded norovirus (stomach bug) takes down Tresha, just what a person recovering from spine surgery needs….

January 5 – Natalie’s father passed away. They were not close in recent times, but it does not make the loss any easier and brings up a wide variety of emotions. They need to make a trip to his hometown to put his affairs in order, so they plan it for that weekend. Wonderful people were able to help them out with getting a hotel so they did not have to spend 7 hours in one day traveling by car.

January 6 -Good news here was the biopsies were benign!

January 6 – Not so good news, Tresha’s bank card was compromised and has fraudulent charged, card is now cancelled and unusable.

January 7 – Logan goes down with norovirus

January 10 – Tresha’s new bank card arrive in mail YAY!

January 11-12 Natalie, Tresha, and Logan make the trip to Nat’s dad’s home and do what they need to. On the morning of January 12 as they are preparing to pack up and head home Logan relapses with norovirus and they decide to stay at the hotel one more night to let him rest. They get home safely but exhausted Monday, January 13.

The overall financial goal set of this campaign is somewhat arbitrary and fluid as we do not know how long circumstances will persist and any little bit helps. Some expenses they have are: lot rent, car gas and upkeep, electric, water, heat, taxes , phone, internet, food, cat food, cat litter, health/ doctors/medicine, Tresha uses and benefits from what we refer to as REDACTED (to not piss off the internet) (aka medibles). Not to forget Logan, who has been an absolute great kid through all this and helps out his family and around the house, and neighbors. We would ideally like to keep his life as normal as possible and let him enjoy his normal extracurriculars of theatre, band, and bowling. He is a teen now having a social life is critical at this age as I am sure we can all remember.

Both women in my opinion are troopers who do let these things stop them and they do their best to live their best lives and do the things they enjoy. They are wonderful people who would and have done whatever they can for us. They are good, kind, loving citizens of the earth and it is my goal to arrange a space here where we can show them some love and support back. I am unemployed and funds are tight so we understand not everyone will be able to contribute financially. If that is the case, please consider leaving a comment or reach out to Tresha and/or Natalie to say hi and offer some words of love.