<div>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.

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<div>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.

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<div>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.

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<div>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.

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<div>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.

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<div>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".

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<div>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.

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<div>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?

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<div>Nobody planned for that. Especially not long term.

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<div>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.

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

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<div>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.

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<div>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.

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<div>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.

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<div>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.

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<div>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.

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<div>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.

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Nancy Hutchins

Karl J Martin

Martin I Rosenberg

Anonymous

Nicole RosenbluthWhitman

Axel Wolff

Lorraine Mumaw

Philip Kelley

Carrie Williams

Linda Halber Romano

Gail Gillispie

Margaret Kunz

Jason Baginski

Andrew Apodaca

Leilani Roberts

Katy Salisbury

Bruce Berman

Jessica Gordon

Cheryl Lynn Blum

Assistance for My Mom's Assisted Living Costs

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platform

Platform is iOS

Android

Adyen Google Pay Development Audience

$opt_dummy_attribute

English only

Deprecate Stripe Legacy

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Adyen V6 Bene Transfer & MyMoney Campaign Organizers - test01

Bene transfer V6 and AdyenV6MyMoney Campaign Organizers - production

OneTrust next-app audience

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NextDoor Share Option Users

Fundraisers with Reactions feature capability

fundCurrencyCode

US + Non-charity COs Only

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fund country is US and user language is English

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Streaming widgets beta user

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3DS payment method

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Money Box Donation List Prompt Experiment Audience

GoFundMe Employees

ipAddress

Mark Rieth IP Address

Version 9.2.0 and above

Fund is in English speaking country

desktop

Android v12.11.0 and above

Platform is Android

paymentMethodType

checkoutType

Payment method type group to be vaulted on success

admin pr kit prod

EUR Donation Upsell

Share Text generation Skip Fundraiser

(prod) new funds eligible for amp12 (UGC gallery)

fintrac_cad_idv_form_v2 audience

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fallback mode accounts

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p2p legacy startfundraising page

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AMP24 New Funds Only PROD (DO NOT MODIFY)

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UKCharities

Federated Search Internal Testing

route.pathname community

US Donation Upsell audience 

Auto Thanks Feature Audience

International Only

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braze fundraiser group 

Payment Identity Transfers ATO Risk Check (Targeted) - Production

Fundraiser Saved Payment Method Rate Limit Bypass (Production)

leaderboard-partner-id-audience-givepanel

Version 9.2.1 and above

AUD Donation Upsell audience

fundraiserCountryCode is US/EN

Active Fundraiser - Smart Default Cadence

DAF Internal

Vault on success card payment method

Platform is iOS v11.0.0 and above

Desktop users

Person ids

United States (US) users

allow yuno fundraisers for test

Mexico country code

Posters INTL

NPO Profile Opted-In

iOS at or above 12.4.0

non-US recurring donors

Canada Campaign Owner Group

Fundraiser Without Meta Link

Scheduler payment tester gorup

charityCommunityId

Charities allow to be claimed unclaimed (PRD)

Canada (CA) users

UC Tipping v20250115 International

pymk_production_xplr_fe_team

Android at or above 12.2.0

Profile photo entry point audience

smart goals (fundraiser/manage) on test01

Activity Tracking v1 Beta Testing

start gfm intl allowed locales

Platform is iOS v11.2.0 and above

NPO upsell education category

unclaimed charities

prod_ach_audience

AI Chatbot Audience

amp13 only new funds (prod) (anyword auto)

UC Flow Enabled (Prod)

Payment Identity Beneficiary Verification - Production

shared notification bell audience

Custom users

ach frontend audience

Android v11.0.0 and above

Users Receiving Payments Paused Notifications

smart goals test01

Manage Coach - US English Organizers Only + new funds only

Team EGG - IP Address list

NPO recommendations prod

Fundraiser Without Instagram Deep Link

Native 11.4.0 and above

UC Tipping v20250107

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anyword

openai

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Native 11.4.0 and higher

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GB Donation Upsell audience 

Auto Thanks V3 Rollout Audience

Thank you V3 testing whitelist

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Is Recurring Friendly

Excluded funds - Video Sharing

NPO upsell animals category

NPO upsell disaster relief category

Logged In Users

CH Donation Upsell audience

Android v10.6.0 and above

NPO upsell essential needs category

NPO upsell medical category

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Localized Currency

NPO upsell cancer category

v11.5.0 and above

testAudience

pathname

Survicate

appVersion is at or above 12.8.0

Non-charity fund

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challenge-fundraisers

Payment Identity Launch Verification - Production

New funds eligible - Posters v2

CAD Donation Upsell Audience

Braze Email Tester

NPO Profile Opted-Out

iOS App Version

hasKnownDonors

PYMK has donors

iOS v12.3.0 and above

Assistance for My Mom's Assisted Living Costs

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