This is extremely difficult for me to ask, but I am at a breaking point. I’m asking for help to pay for my mother’s care. My mom is 91 years old, wheelchair bound, completely incontinent, on oxygen 24/7, and in cognitive decline, so full-time care in an assisted living facility is an absolute necessity. But, as I’m sure many of you know, that kind of care comes with a hefty price tag attached. After paying for her assisted living for over two years plus my own medical bills and other emergency expenses, my resources have run dry, and the bills are piling up.

I’m only asking for short-term help, not an endless flow of aid. My mother has money in a few retirement accounts, but due to the financial institutions’ stipulations on the power of attorney, I won’t have full access to that money for another two months. There are some additional assets which aren't liquid, and it'll be months before I can start dealing with them. So, I need some assistance to get through these next couple of months because things look particularly grim.

My mom and dad did everything right: they had good careers, they saved for their retirement, they made investments, and they raised me, an only child, to understand from an early age that I'd be their caretaker eventually.

They did everything they were supposed to do, and so did I. I stayed close to home, I took care of my father as he aged and his health deteriorated. I fought his battles with doctors, and specialists, and in the end, I buried him, while taking care of my mother too. I was with her through her breast cancer diagnosis and treatments, while still running the household.

I even managed living by myself in 2021 after she fell and ended up in the hospital for three weeks followed by rehabilitation. While there, she contracted Covid, but thankfully survived. It took her six long months of recovery before she came home, and needed me to care for her more than ever. After that, despite in-home physical therapy, she continued to get weaker and less mobile. She had a number of falls, and other medical emergencies which led to more trips to the emergency room and more hospital stays followed by more time in rehabilitation.

Then 2023 happened. It was no longer just my mother who needed care. After coping for fifteen years with chronic back problems due to a degenerating disc, my condition reached a point of no return. I needed an immediate lumbar spinal fusion or face the risk of becoming paraplegic within six months. Spinal fusion is a major surgery which requires a long rehabilitation period with severe physical restrictions, so taking care of my mom to the extent she needed under those circumstances was impossible. As my then-doctor told me "you're going to have a hard enough time taking care of yourself. You won't be able to do it for your mom".

She couldn't live independently because she was wheelchair bound and already starting to show signs of cognitive impairment. My only choice was to move her into an assisted living community while I was dealing with all of this. The original plan was that she'd come back home once I was well enough to care for her again.

My first surgery was successful. However, my four to five day hospital stay became a two week long hospitalization due to complications, which required an additional surgery. I came home barely able to walk, needing to rely on a walker, forbidden to lift more than five lbs, and in unremitting pain. Even accomplishing the most basic of tasks was an ordeal. What happens when the sole caretaker needs care herself?

Nobody planned for that. Especially not long term.

I certainly didn’t plan on continued health problems, including needing surgery on two fingers, and a herniated disc which caused excruciating sciatica and neuropathy in my left foot. Last year, after suffering for six months, I needed more surgery with a new surgeon which included a second lumbar fusion, and mesh cages placed between my vertebrae for stabilization via an abdominal incision, aka ALIF. Unfortunately, serious problems arose within days of my return home -- including a fractured sacrum -- and I needed an emergency third lumbar fusion plus repair of "flat back syndrome" with yet another specialist.

The entire summer of 2025 was spent going in and out of the Hospital For Special Surgery in Manhattan.

At the end of September, while I was recovering from my last surgery, my mom contracted a serious infection which turned to sepsis. She went to the hospital, then rehabilitation yet again, but the ordeal left her in a more debilitated state than she'd been before. Now she's unable to stand on her own, needs oxygen round the clock, and is having difficulty swallowing. Even though I could barely walk at the time, and had no one to help me, I ended up having to move her and all her things to a new assisted living facility that could offer a higher level of care than the place where she'd been living for the past two years.

In spite of all of that, I have been trying to find a job, but it's been impossible. Because of my back issues, I'm disabled. I can't walk without a cane, can't stay on my feet for long periods of time, and my doctors have forbidden me from bending, twisting or lifting anything over 5 lbs. Unfortunately, there aren't many remote jobs to apply for.

It's killing me to be in this position to have to ask friends, family, and strangers on the internet for a helping hand to get through the next few months, but here we are. I've tried very hard to avoid it, but after all my health problems, no job despite my best efforts, and financial institutions making me wait months to get control over my mom's finances, I've hit rock bottom.

Right now, I am two months behind on paying rent at my mom's new assisted living facility. That's $9500 a month, so $19,000. She also needs new dentures because her old ones no longer fit, and without teeth she can't chew, so can only eat pureed food. She doesn't have dental insurance, so it's an additional cost of $3k for those. The property taxes on her house are overdue as well, so that's another $8k needed.

I'm still paying off my own medical bills from last year, and even with insurance, the medications I'm on are all expensive. My mom is not eligible for Medicaid for a myriad of reasons, I'm not eligible for disability, and I won't have access to her accounts for at least 60 days. I don't have that amount of time without any income and no way to pay bills or maxed out credit cards which were used to pay her expenses previously. I need to make sure my mom is safe, and getting the care she both needs and deserves. I just want to be solvent again.

I've done everything I can for my mom and I've done it almost entirely by myself. I have no family besides her, no partner, children, or local friends able to help me out with anything. Trying to handle everything while coping with physical disabilities and a multitude of health problems has been exhausting. I'm just so tired. Tired of fighting with insurance companies, with assisted living facilities, with banks, with collection agencies, and with doctors' offices. So, I'm putting myself out here, asking for help; for financial help, of course, but almost just as important right now, help to make me feel that I'm not on my own, that someone, somewhere has my back.