Help a trucker in need
If you know my mom, you know she never asks for help. EVER. So, I’m here to ask for her. If you know her, you also know that she loves people more than people deserve. Her heart is as full of love as they come... despite all the trials and tribulations that she’s had to go through. She has every reason to be jaded with people and with life, but still... she gives everybody a fair shake.
My mother’s name is Rena. Her work ethic is relentless and second to none. I’ve never seen her not hustling and grinding to make a positive impact on everybody around her. From bailing people out when they’ve fallen on hard time to just being straight up generous... the money that she has worked for is never hoarded for herself. This relentlessness has only been exacerbated by this pandemic and her innate desire to do good in the world.
You might be wondering what she does that’s so great? My mother is a long haul truck driver. She sacrifices the vast majority of her time on the road in isolation with only her dog Winkie to keep her company. It may not be glamorous... but, I think we all know that we’d be dead in the water without people like her being willing to play this difficult position in our society. Truck drivers, teachers, healthcare workers, grocers, paramedics, EMTs, firefighters, and other essential workers have bent over backwards to earn an honest living... and have only stretched themselves further over the last year. Just how much has she stretched herself? In the last year, she has driven over 200,000 miles. You might be thinking that’s an exaggeration. It isn’t. Every mile spent transporting the supplies and other things that we need to simply survive. So, why am I here for her asking for help?
On November 2nd, I got a call from my mother at 3am. She could barely speak and did not sound like she was in a good way at all. It was all she could do to call me. I knew something was very wrong. My mom is tough as hell and wouldn’t just be doing this for nothing. All I could do was call the ambulance and hope that that wasn’t going to be the last time I ever got to talk to my mom... I honestly didn’t know if it was or wasn’t going to be and I had no idea what was even happening. So, naturally I feared the worst.
Luckily I knew exactly where she was parked and she wasn’t in the middle of nowhere as we had just had dinner the night before. The first responders were there in under 10 minutes and took her to Lakeview Hospital where she was stabilized and kept overnight. They discovered that my mom’s chest cavity had filled with fluid on the right side causing her lung to partially collapse resulting in a dangerous drop in her oxygen levels. They prescribed an antibiotic and ibuprofen and sent her home. 3 days later, she was not getting any better. She was in excruciating pain and still couldn’t breathe.
This time we took her to the ER up at the University of Utah. She was quickly admitted. She received CT Scans, EKGs, MRIs, the whole 9. Her oxygen was SATing in the 70s so they were going to keep her and started giving her targeted antibiotics via IV to fight whatever this infection was. After two days of not progressing, her doctors decided that she needed to receive a chest tube to drain the fluid and infection from her chest cavity. Let me tell you something... you’re never ready to hear them ask your mom if she wants to be resuscitated if she stops breathing or ask her who her power of attorney is... and you’re never ready to be the one to decide if your mother lives or dies should it come to that.
With a chest tube now inserted, she spent the next 5 days in the pulmonary unit up at the University of Utah hospital. Finally she started to show progress. While this is because she fought through all of this, none of this would have been possible had it not been for the first responders that were there in minutes, and the great healthcare that she received at the university. To everybody who played a part in saving her life, I can’t possibly thank you enough. We’re immensely grateful that she is now home and doing much better. I’m sure you can already guess where that’s left us... more than a week in the hospital, an ambulance ride, CT scans, MRIs, EKGs, ultrasounds, a chest tube, and round the clock care on an acute care unit... none of that is cheap by itself. Let alone all together. But, it doesn’t even stop there.
To add insult to injury, Flying J in North Salt Lake is where her truck was parked when she was taken in an ambulance. I called them on the 5th to see if my mom’s truck was still there and to ask if we could leave the truck parked there until she could come back to get it. They confirmed her truck was still there, took my number, and said that they wouldn’t tow it... and if they needed anything they would call me. This was a big relief and a serious act of generosity that we were very grateful for as she needed to be focused on improving her health. Or so we thought...
Today (11/19/2020, nearly 3 weeks after she initially hospitalized)... mom is finally feeling up to being up and around without it taking too much out of her. We go to get her truck to find out that despite telling us it was okay and they would call us if we needed to retrieve it, the manager Jameson had it towed... less than a week after I talked to them. Her truck had now not only been towed, but also has now been impounded for over a week. It’s now nearly $1,000 to get her way of earning an honest living and getting everything that we all need to live to us.
Let me just say... people that rely on other people’s misfortune to make their living are the roaches of our society. I get that you got called to tow this truck and you stored it. But, seriously?... $1,000 dollars to get it back? In these circumstances?... all you have to say is, “They call and we come tow it... and we still went out and did the job. It’s not our fault.” You are the worst kind of people. Even still... my mom smiled, thanked them for their “help” and wished them a good day... I’ll never get it. But, that’s who she is nowadays... and that’s who she’ll be for the rest of them. She’s gonna be a 70 year old lady driving her rig across the country leaving nothing but sugar in her wake.
This is where you all come in... it’s no small favor to ask, I know.. especially now. But, as more than 30 million people across this country, my mother unfortunately doesn’t have any health insurance as a self employed contractor. She’s in a deep hole with hospital bills, regular bills now that she hasn’t been able to work for the last month, and on top of that having to pay this towing company $1,000 just to get her truck back. She would never ask for anybody’s help, so I am asking for her. No help is too small. Sharing this post, donating anything you can, or just posting a comment to send her some positive vibes... we appreciate it all and anything that any of you can do will never go overlooked.
If you made it this far, thank you for your time. Time is your most valuable resource and the fact that you spent it listening to my mom’s story means the world. We’re just glad that she’s still around to fight another day. We really cannot thank the first responders, doctors, nurses and aids that helped keep her around enough. The world is a better place because of people like you. You work miracles every day and represent the best of us as people.
With great humility,
My entire family