Hi, my name is Danielle Marcum and I never thought I would be setting up a go-fund me in my life--but here I am. I am a teacher(teach 1-3rd grade) with two boys(Ethan 8, Eli 4) and my partner John and I live in Orlando. John works with selling furniture, air bnb, and has a photobooth van for weddings. His businesses took a big hit from covid and he has been working super hard to restore them. I am so appreciative of all the support I have received getting food delivered and so many other things, but I am struggling in certain areas and so I am setting this page up to hopefully help a little with the large amount of medical bills.

In late March/early April, I started noticing some pain in my left leg. It continued and I started to try to do yoga to help the leg. My doctor ordered xrays and ultrasounds but it all came back normal. My doctor was not sure what was wrong so she ordered physical therapy. Physical therapy made the leg worse and for months I noticed the leg getting worse and worse. I finally went to see a chiropractor in June. Even though I didn't have back pain, I was hoping he could help my leg and figure out what was wrong. He immediately did an MRI and they found a herniated disc in my spine. I'm not sure how I injured myself, but the disc is sending pain signals constantly down my left leg and the leg began to have severe weakness. Most likely I have done too much bending/lifting/twisting(carrying my kids ha) over the years and I did something that finally caused the injury. I had to stop working/teaching for now and I began to see the chiropractor every day doing traction and adjustments and trigger point injections. I have also continued doing pain therapy yoga with an instructor during these months to try to help. The leg continued to get worse so they had me go see a neurosurgeon. He assessed the weakness and my leg and said I needed to have a microdisectomy surgery and continue physical therapy for an extended period after I have healed after the surgery to get more back to normal. My surgery is on the 20th of July coming up soon.

Although I have medical insurance, I have a deductible. The medical bills have piled up to a large amount considering every time I go to doctor I have to pay money. I also had to pay 500 dollars for the MRI. I have been trying to continue normal life expenses for my kids but it has been challenging. Both my boys are in summer school/camp right now during the day.My older son who is 8 Ethan has a reading disability so he gets tutoring twice a week to try to help him in this area. He is also getting counseling/therapy-as he struggles with anxiety and is a little nervous for mommy during this time. My younger son Eli who is 4 gets speech therapy twice a week as well. As I'm trying to keep up with paying their therapies, I am getting more and more in debt with paying the medical bills and offices these past 4 months. Also the cost of the surgery is also going to add to my sum I need to pay. I will have to continue to pay money in the future months going to physical therapy weekly after a healing period. As we have been paying this, our house has had bad roof leaks through our ceiling so we are putting a new roof on now-also with a high deductible. Our air condition system also needs to be replaced, so when it rains it pours.

The hospital says I have to pay 875 by this monday or they will cancel surgery. So I plan on putting that on credit card for now. I have to pay the hospital the remainder of 3,500 surgery cost by monthly payments. Even though I pay each month out of my paycheck for my kids/me for health insurance, I have a 7,500 deductible to meet before they will pay anything. So in sum, your help is greatly appreciated since I am not working right now.

I have to say though, this experience has been enlightening to me in many ways. One, don't forget to take care of yourself(not overwork and drain yourself)when you are busy taking care of others--one day it will catch up to you ha. Two, God is so good and people are kind beyond your expectations. We all have our own struggles and financial issues, but people have been so kind to me in this time that it is something I will never forget. Maybe this time was meant to be--to remind me not to just go through the motions of work and house cleaning and child raising, but to remind me the importance of gratitude, of accepting help, human connection, rest, and seeing the big picture. Maybe one day I can really help someone who is going through the same thing and encourage them-who knows. Or hopefully I can help as many people as I can because I feel like so many people have helped me. I believe every interaction and every moment in life has a purpose(even those hard moments at home with fighting kids ha). I don't like to ask for help, but I am accepting that I have to at this point. There are people going through so much harder things than me right now, but I appreciate the support more than you know.

In the words of Bob Marley ha(I've been listening to him while at home) "When one door is closed, many more is open"