Help Jon and Sara Get Through Jon’s Recovery
$4,231 raised of
Help Jon and Sara Get Through Jon’s Recovery
I’m Jon. For 36 years I’ve worked in IT, the last 21 as a senior infrastructure and platform engineer at the same company, and before that as a soldier in the U.S. Army Reserve. I’m the person teams called when the systems had to stay up and nobody else could figure out why they weren’t. In all that time, I have never been the one asking for help. I’m asking now.
WHAT HAPPENED
In January I was hospitalized with severe intestinal complications. Since then I’ve spent all but eight days in a hospital. In April, still in a hospital bed, I went on short-term disability. On July 14th, the company I’d given 21 years to let me go. No severance.
Today I’m in a medical rehab facility working to get my strength back. I don’t yet have a date for when I can go home.
WHERE WE ARE NOW
My wife Sara has carried all of it alone since January: the household, the bills, the drive to the hospital and back, the calls with insurance, and a version of this year where she gets no rest either. She has held this family together in ways I will never be able to repay.
There’s no 401(k) to fall back on; that went to earlier emergencies years ago. Our application for utility assistance was denied, and I’m appealing and applying for other help, but the bills keep coming.
I fully intend to go back to work. Remote infrastructure and platform engineering is what I do, and I’m good at it. But you can’t run a job search from a hospital bed, and right now recovery has to come first. The bills and insurance premiums didn’t pause to wait for either one.
WHAT WE NEED RIGHT NOW
Thanks to many of you, our water bill is caught up. The most urgent needs now are:
Electric bill: $490.30. We’re past due, and we’re working out a payment plan, but every dollar helps keep the lights on.
Cell phones: $360.23 due next month, our only way to reach each other while I’m in rehab.
Sara’s car: it needs front-end steering and suspension repairs to be safe to drive. The mechanic’s early estimate for the bare-minimum safety repair is about $550 to $700, and it will need tires after that.
THE LONGER-TERM GOAL
Beyond those bills, we’re raising $30,000, about $2,545 a month for a year, so that Sara and I can get through recovery and back on our feet. Every month:
$571: Monthly utilities. Electric and gas ($161), water (about $50) and cell phones ($360).
$145: Insurance premiums. Keeping us both covered through the gap; losing coverage mid-treatment isn’t survivable, financially or otherwise.
$500: Medical. Co-pays, prescriptions, and rehab costs insurance doesn’t cover.
$300: Groceries and household essentials.
$1,029: Other household bills and catching up on past-due balances.
If I’m back on payroll before we hit the goal, I’ll say so here and stop the campaign.
EVEN IF YOU CAN’T GIVE
Share it. Reach matters more than any single donation. One share into the right network is worth more than most checks.
THANK YOU
Asking for help is hard when you’ve spent a career being the one who fixes things. But Sara has carried this year on her own, and I’m not going to let pride be the reason she has to carry the next one too.
Whatever you can do, whether it’s a dollar, a share, or a kind word, we’ll carry it with us into whatever comes next.
With gratitude,
Jon & Sara