Help an MS Patient's Family Pay Bills & Expenses

Hi, My name is Shenole Latimer and I have Primary Progressive Multiple Sclerosis. I'm launching this GoFundMe page because my family and I have exhausted our reserves and our options.

Because of my disease, I have had to leave the workforce. My wife has a job but it has not been enough to cover all of the monthly bills we have. And, my ongoing medical expenses continue to sink us deeper and deeper underwater. My hope is that we will be able to raise $50,000 in donations to help us maintain our household while we wait for assistance from Medicaid and Disability Benefits.

Before I go into more detail about our needs, I think it would be helpful for some people that I explain what MS is and how it has affected me and my family.

What is MS in Case You Didn't Know

The most simple way to define MS is it's a disease where your immune system is attacking your nervous system. You also develop lesions on your brain and, in my case, your spinal cord. All of this can cause a bunch of symptoms that many MS patients share in common and also symptoms that are uniquely experienced by each individual.

The Effects of MS on Me and My Family

My friends and family would tell you that I'm an optimistic, creative, and sincere person. They would probably also say that I was very active before MS really started disrupting my life.

But now, my mobility issues, chronic back pain, and other challenges have had a serious impact on my activity level.

My wife is a very compassionate person and is driven. Our 15, soon to be 16, year old daughter is a wonderful mix of both of our traits. But the growing physical difficulties I have been enduring and the financial stress we have been facing have taken a serious toll on us.

I'm in constant pain from my back and there is no relief. Every day, I'm not faced with the question of whether or not I will be in pain. The question that I'm really faced with is how much pain will I experience that day.

I have numbness and weakness in my hands and legs, which makes things like typing, picking up small objects, and walking very difficult. On a bad day, those things are all impossible for me to do.

Because of my increasing leg weakness, I must walk with a walker. And in fact, I do have a wheelchair. However, my hands have grown too weak to propel myself in it. As a result, I'm forced to use my walker more than I should. I say "more than I should" because I have been falling with growing frequency. I now fall an average of 2 times a week. Because I'm a pretty big guy (6'3" 300lbs), we have to resort to calling the fire department to help me back up.

By some miracle, I haven't had a major injury yet...just scrapes and bruises. But, I don't want to continue to press my luck. A powered wheelchair would benefit me greatly.

I mentioned in the beginning that I have had to drop out of the workforce. One of the reasons that I had to is also one of the same reasons why I don't have much of a social life anymore. It's because I am now having issues concerning when I must go to the restroom. I don't always have a warning that I have to go. What that means is there are certain episodes that require a lot of time and attention to manage. As you can no doubt imagine, that has made me reluctant to go out socially or for any of us in the house to even invite people over.

Though I'm out of the workforce, I do have involvement remotely with two small startup companies. They value me for what I can contribute with my creative, critical, and strategic thinking. They are aware of my challenges and the time those challenges rob from me. As such, they allow me to do things in my own time. Both startups are making impressive strides but are not yet at a stage where they can compensate me financially. They are more of an investment for me that I hope will one day yield better financial assistance than government programs. They also serve as something for me to focus on rather than my daily back pain.

As I said earlier, this is not an easy situation for my wife and daughter to experience either. My wife does not sleep well and is always knocking on the door of our bathroom when I'm using it because she's afraid I may have fallen and am unconscious. Our daughter has had to deal with seeing her father in serious pain and in compromising, and embarrassing, moments. With the stress of being a teenage girl in high school and the things she sees me go through, it's been understandably difficult for her to focus in school and keep her grades up.

Our Donation Goal and What the Funds Are For

I have applied for Medicaid. But as residents of Florida, I'm told by my social worker it will take 45 days for the Department of Children and Families to determine if we are eligible. I have applied for disability benefits, but it takes 6 to 8 months for the Social Security Administration to provide a decision.

In the meantime, bills are mounting.

I've calculated that $50,000 raised by April 30th would be sufficient to give us the lifeline we need during the 6 to 8 months we would be waiting to hear back from the SSA regarding disability benefits.

We hope to raise the $50,000 by April 30th because that is when we will completely lose our ability to stay current with our cost of living bills. As I mentioned earlier, we have depleted the reserves we had. We used them up by trying to augment the payments my wife was making with her paychecks. We are already late with a few medical bills. Also, by raising a fixed amount of money within a definite period rather than having an ongoing monthly fundraiser, we can avoid the uncertainty of not knowing how much we may receive in donations from month to month. We will have a better opportunity to plan and ration out the funds as needed.

The money we raise will go towards:

How Your Donation Will Help Us

Your donation will not only make a huge difference to our family's situation while we wait for government assistance, but it will also make a huge difference to me personally.

By donating to our fund, you can prevent our family from drowning in an unsurmountable debt, help me to prevent receiving a serious injury, and give us the peace of mind we need to cope with our stressful journey.

With regards to the difference that your donation will make for me personally, you will be giving me greater mobility and freedom, and a chance to see my wife and daughter smile more often.

And lastly, please...please...please be sure to share our GoFundMe page with others. Thank you!!!!!!

Shenole