Help Erin (re)Build a Life Worth Living

Our story continues! We're starting the second phase of our renovation.

To understand why we're doing what we're doing, read the rest of this story.

To know what we're doing now, and how you can help us make it through this phase, read the update from December 15, 2024.

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My name is Erin, and machines keep me alive.

Good, I have your attention.

I’m attached to machines 24/7, and those machines, including a ventilator and feeding tube, have kept me alive for the last decade.

THE DIAGNOSIS THAT CHANGED EVERYTHING

When I was 25 years old, I was a Ph.D. student at the University of Alberta, and I spent more than half of that year hospitalized in intensive care. I received an explanation for the muscle weakness and breathing problems that kept landing me in the ICU: Myasthenia Gravis (MG).

This neuromuscular disease aggressively attacks the muscles, and the muscles that allowed me to breathe were already alarmingly weak.

Just months after moving to Alberta to start my PhD, I was in BC and collapsed, coded, and put into a medically induced coma. I was only supposed to be in BC for a weekend, but after three months on life support in the ICU, I knew I wouldn’t return to Edmonton.

Our plans dissolved.

Three hundred and sixty days after I coded, I left the hospital paralyzed, needing a ventilator, a wheelchair , and 24-hour medical care to make sure I didn’t die.

My ventilator keeps me alive, but that isn’t the story that I am telling right now. This story is about how I have fought to stay alive, and my family fought with me to make that life worth living.

CREATING A HOME TO FIT ME

While I was in the hospital, my parents, Tim and Janet, completely renovated the main floor of our home to accommodate the wheelchair, hospital bed, ceiling lift, and supplies my new life needed. This renovation went perfectly and allowed me to move back home instead of into a care facility. Over the years, we continued to adapt the house to meet our changing needs.

A person standing can turn around on the spot, and someone using a manual wheelchair can turn in three- or four-square feet. I need six square feet to turn. For perspective, I can’t turn in the hallway of a “regular” residential house..

After months of discouraging searches for a new home to meet our family’s needs, we found an older house with good bones and the perfect location. Despite meeting many of our needs, the new house needed extensive renovations to become fully accessible for me.

MOM AND DAD: RENOVATION DREAM TEAM

With this new house, we had the challenge of renovating our home and providing intensive medical care in our “home-based ICU” to keep me alive.

WE COULDN’T DO IT ALONE

Mom and Dad didn’t feel they could manage such a challenging renovation without help this time, and we began searching for a contractor.

NEW TEAM PLAYER… OR IS HE?

We desperately needed someone to oversee the construction; because the effort of keeping me alive was straining everyone to their limit, and we thought we’d found the person we needed. We could never have imagined how wrong we would be.

MISREPRESENTATION AND MISAPPROPRIATION

The contractor we hired took advantage of our situation. We did our due diligence, getting references from past clients and coworkers, but never imagined we had met a professional liar. It’s true in our story that “hindsight is 20/20.” Despite warning signs, we couldn’t see the extent of the problems until it became too late.

The contractor misrepresented his skills, abilities, and credentials. He over-billed us hundreds of thousands of dollars and lied about deposits and taxes. He procrastinated and delayed the project for almost two years. When we began looking into where our money had gone, the contractor handed us a cease-and-desist letter, claiming we were defaming him. Then, he stopped responding to any of our calls or messages. Now, he has liquidated his remaining assets and disappeared.

THE PROBLEM

The contractor left us with an unfinished foundation and piles of rubble, dirt, and garbage wood. He took the money that would have transformed our house into a home a year ago.

We need your help to finish this project.

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THE DETAILS

We spoke to a trusted friend who referred us to a new, honest contractor helping us raise the money to complete our renovation. Our new contractor, who isn't criminally underselling us, gave us a new quote.

The first contractor told us that the renovation would cost $200,000, but we’ve now learned that we will need closer to $500,000.

We are completing the renovation in two phases, which will take longer and cost slightly more than if we could move out of the house during the renovation and complete the work all at once. However, that is not possible, and to work around me, we need to work on only half the house at a time.

Our most pressing need is to build the addition that will accommodate my accessible bedroom and bathroom, which is part of the new construction at the back of the house. We are calling this “Phase One”.

PHASE ONE (Almost Completed)

Phase One will cost $210,000. We will begin phase two as soon as we finish Phase One and raise the money we need.

PHASE TWO

HOW YOU CAN HELP

We need your help, and appreciation and gratitude are all we can give you in return.

You’re likely reading this story because you’re connected to me or my family.

You worked with Mom, Dad, or Elizabeth; cared for me at home as a caregiver or medical provider; were my doctor or nurse; went to church with any or all of us. But you may not know us. You might have clicked on our story somewhere on Facebook. Or a friend shared it with you.

Regardless, you read our story, proving that sharing this will get it to people who can help.

Please share our story.

Whoever you are, thank you for letting us share our story with you.

Thank you for anything you can do to help us rebuild our lives.