Mom needs a reliable car for medical appointments
Donation protected
You guys. I desperately want to figure out a way to get my mom and dad a dependable AWD (all wheel drive) car to ensure my mom can get the medical care she needs. Her story is below. At the end is what she’s currently dealing with.
My mom. Man. Hands down the strongest, most resilient, hilarious, hard working (when she was able), selfless person I have ever known to exist. She deserves the world, but has more often than not struggled through life.
She had a hard childhood. Her parents had a toxic relationship. Home life wasn’t stable. They moved sometimes upwards of ten times in one school year. She quit school in middle school to help her grandpa on a garbage truck. She got married at 17 and became a mom at 18. We always joke that we grew up together because it’s kind of true.
Mom has always been determined. Often working multiple jobs to make sure we could take family vacations (usually to stay with relatives or to go camping, but a vacation no less). We’ve lived in homes with no running water, homes with straw as insulation in the walls, places where we had to heat with wood to stay warm, even in government subsidized housing. We sat in health clinics and sliding scale doctor offices to get our health care taken care of. But my parents always made sure we had a home and food and felt loved.
Mom got her GED while raising two girls and working multiple jobs. She was taking college courses towards becoming a nurse when she woke up one day at age 27 and couldn’t get out of bed. Literally fine one day and nearly immobilized the next. She spent the next few years trying to find answers or doctors who would agree to see her without insurance. Some doctors were cold hearted and callous and suggested she could have any number of ailments, most of which were a death sentence. We even tried traveling to and from Pennsylvania for a while so she could see a doctor who thought she had Lyme’s Disease. Mom filed for and was award disability on her own and was approved on her first application because of how severe she was affected. She found a rheumatologist to oversee her and he told her that her case was as bad as an 85 year old man that he saw in his practice. She had three joint replacements by the time she was 35 (both knees and a hip).
Mom never let it slow her down really. She powered through the pain and found ways to keep living life. She never let it change how she parented us. Mom has always been the most hilarious and selfless person on the planet regardless of what she’s gone through.
At the end of 2009 mom and dad were able to finally purchase their first home thanks to a government subsidized loan. It was their dream home. Some acreage, country life, lots of space to make it into the place they always dreamed of owning. A year later things started crashing. We lost more than a few close family members unexpectedly (mom’s mom included). Following that, mom went through a cancer scare and literally a month after those tests came back okay, mom developed a staph infection in her artificial hip. That was the beginning of a solid year of PIC lines, body casts, antibiotic bone blocks, and surgeries (on her right hip and left knee . . . multiple times each). The following years would have a few flare ups of issues with her knee (requiring outpatient surgery) and the collapsing of the ball in her left hip (resulting in a total left hip replacement). Those years were followed by multiple falls each year, most of them resulting in broken arms in multiple places and no way to fix them other than to use a splint for a while and then use the arm while being broken. Last year, mom fell twice and broke both arms within three months of one another. Things calmed down for a bit for the fall and winter of 2019, but then in February of 2020, mom had a stoke in her sleep (something that only happens to 14% of people), which meant she couldn’t take the drugs to reverse the effects of the stroke. It happened on the left side of her brain, so she lost her speech and initially had total paralysis on the right side of her body. Strokes are hard for anyone, but mom has severe rheumatoid arthritis on top of it. Covid decided to come along a week after mom went into the hospital from the stroke. This meant that she couldn’t see any of us through her time there or at rehab. While in rehab, mom got aspiration pneumonia and ended up with a MRSA bone infection in her foot. After a couple rounds of unsuccessful antibiotics, she had to have surgery to have some of the bone removed (and hasn’t had any issues from it since), and the pneumonia cleared up (thank God).
She’s been home since April. Visits have had to be at a distance and outside because of mom’s immunocompromised risk. Winter has made yard visits pretty few and far between. This makes things harder for mom. Covid messed up mom being able to hold my daughter during the window of mom’s ability to do so. I just want to hug my mom.
While mom was recovering from her stroke, she developed a pressure sore on her tailbone. It tunneled the wrong way. She started seeing wound care to get it to heal. She had a spot rupture on her butt cheek shortly after. They found a tumor inside and removed it. Testing showed it was a tumor that typically is only found inside the heart. How it grew in mom’s butt cheek is a mystery. That wound is currently causing mom issues. It has tunneled 5 inches deep to bone. The drainage coming from the wound (at one point, up to a cup of it at a time) has had bits of wire in it. We’re not sure if this is coming from a wire that was used to reattach her femur during the right hip revision in 2011 or what. Mom had some blood cultures taken and it showed bacteria. She was put on an antibiotic for that, but only for a week, and when the car literally fell apart on her way to town last week (causing her to miss her appointment and get x-rays), the doctor wouldn’t call her in anymore until he sees her (tomorrow 1/6). The cultures they took of the drainage from the wound didn’t grow anything, which, frankly, doesn’t make any sense.
It is so important right now for mom to have a dependable way to get to and from appointments. She inherited my grandma’s car in 2010 when my grandma passed away. It currently has over 250k miles on it and is 18 years old. Mom had to miss a wound care visit recently because it snowed—just a dusting, but that was enough the keep the car from being able to make it in or out of the driveway. Last week, dad tried to bring mom to her appointment but it had a flat tire. They tried going to town later that day to get mom’s medication, x-rays that she needs, and a tire put on a rim for the car, but the brake pads literally fell off the car on the way to town. I had to go get mom’s medicine and follow them home while dad used the emergency brake to get them there. The car is basically at the point in its lifecycle that it’s falling apart and nickel and diming mom and dad. Which isn’t great for anyone, but especially not for two disabled people who rely on social security for their income.
Mom just needs a car that can get her to and from town safely. That’s why I’m trying to raise money. I want to give mom something nice for a change . . . she’s only 55—she deserves some nice things. Besides, a dependable car would take something off my dad’s plate so he no longer has to constantly stress about and try to fix it (because that’s not easy for him since he has spina bifida). I had to bring car parts to dad today so he could try to finish fixing the brakes to get mom to town for the x-rays she needs. Any visit out of the house is a potential exposure for covid right now, so please be praying for protection for my parents for that. And also that this infection clears up, that there is no surgery needed, and for mom’s mental stamina. All this stuff wears her down. It’s so hard to have to see your mom literally afraid for her life and have to worry about car issues on top of it.
My mom. Man. Hands down the strongest, most resilient, hilarious, hard working (when she was able), selfless person I have ever known to exist. She deserves the world, but has more often than not struggled through life.
She had a hard childhood. Her parents had a toxic relationship. Home life wasn’t stable. They moved sometimes upwards of ten times in one school year. She quit school in middle school to help her grandpa on a garbage truck. She got married at 17 and became a mom at 18. We always joke that we grew up together because it’s kind of true.
Mom has always been determined. Often working multiple jobs to make sure we could take family vacations (usually to stay with relatives or to go camping, but a vacation no less). We’ve lived in homes with no running water, homes with straw as insulation in the walls, places where we had to heat with wood to stay warm, even in government subsidized housing. We sat in health clinics and sliding scale doctor offices to get our health care taken care of. But my parents always made sure we had a home and food and felt loved.
Mom got her GED while raising two girls and working multiple jobs. She was taking college courses towards becoming a nurse when she woke up one day at age 27 and couldn’t get out of bed. Literally fine one day and nearly immobilized the next. She spent the next few years trying to find answers or doctors who would agree to see her without insurance. Some doctors were cold hearted and callous and suggested she could have any number of ailments, most of which were a death sentence. We even tried traveling to and from Pennsylvania for a while so she could see a doctor who thought she had Lyme’s Disease. Mom filed for and was award disability on her own and was approved on her first application because of how severe she was affected. She found a rheumatologist to oversee her and he told her that her case was as bad as an 85 year old man that he saw in his practice. She had three joint replacements by the time she was 35 (both knees and a hip).
Mom never let it slow her down really. She powered through the pain and found ways to keep living life. She never let it change how she parented us. Mom has always been the most hilarious and selfless person on the planet regardless of what she’s gone through.
At the end of 2009 mom and dad were able to finally purchase their first home thanks to a government subsidized loan. It was their dream home. Some acreage, country life, lots of space to make it into the place they always dreamed of owning. A year later things started crashing. We lost more than a few close family members unexpectedly (mom’s mom included). Following that, mom went through a cancer scare and literally a month after those tests came back okay, mom developed a staph infection in her artificial hip. That was the beginning of a solid year of PIC lines, body casts, antibiotic bone blocks, and surgeries (on her right hip and left knee . . . multiple times each). The following years would have a few flare ups of issues with her knee (requiring outpatient surgery) and the collapsing of the ball in her left hip (resulting in a total left hip replacement). Those years were followed by multiple falls each year, most of them resulting in broken arms in multiple places and no way to fix them other than to use a splint for a while and then use the arm while being broken. Last year, mom fell twice and broke both arms within three months of one another. Things calmed down for a bit for the fall and winter of 2019, but then in February of 2020, mom had a stoke in her sleep (something that only happens to 14% of people), which meant she couldn’t take the drugs to reverse the effects of the stroke. It happened on the left side of her brain, so she lost her speech and initially had total paralysis on the right side of her body. Strokes are hard for anyone, but mom has severe rheumatoid arthritis on top of it. Covid decided to come along a week after mom went into the hospital from the stroke. This meant that she couldn’t see any of us through her time there or at rehab. While in rehab, mom got aspiration pneumonia and ended up with a MRSA bone infection in her foot. After a couple rounds of unsuccessful antibiotics, she had to have surgery to have some of the bone removed (and hasn’t had any issues from it since), and the pneumonia cleared up (thank God).
She’s been home since April. Visits have had to be at a distance and outside because of mom’s immunocompromised risk. Winter has made yard visits pretty few and far between. This makes things harder for mom. Covid messed up mom being able to hold my daughter during the window of mom’s ability to do so. I just want to hug my mom.
While mom was recovering from her stroke, she developed a pressure sore on her tailbone. It tunneled the wrong way. She started seeing wound care to get it to heal. She had a spot rupture on her butt cheek shortly after. They found a tumor inside and removed it. Testing showed it was a tumor that typically is only found inside the heart. How it grew in mom’s butt cheek is a mystery. That wound is currently causing mom issues. It has tunneled 5 inches deep to bone. The drainage coming from the wound (at one point, up to a cup of it at a time) has had bits of wire in it. We’re not sure if this is coming from a wire that was used to reattach her femur during the right hip revision in 2011 or what. Mom had some blood cultures taken and it showed bacteria. She was put on an antibiotic for that, but only for a week, and when the car literally fell apart on her way to town last week (causing her to miss her appointment and get x-rays), the doctor wouldn’t call her in anymore until he sees her (tomorrow 1/6). The cultures they took of the drainage from the wound didn’t grow anything, which, frankly, doesn’t make any sense.
It is so important right now for mom to have a dependable way to get to and from appointments. She inherited my grandma’s car in 2010 when my grandma passed away. It currently has over 250k miles on it and is 18 years old. Mom had to miss a wound care visit recently because it snowed—just a dusting, but that was enough the keep the car from being able to make it in or out of the driveway. Last week, dad tried to bring mom to her appointment but it had a flat tire. They tried going to town later that day to get mom’s medication, x-rays that she needs, and a tire put on a rim for the car, but the brake pads literally fell off the car on the way to town. I had to go get mom’s medicine and follow them home while dad used the emergency brake to get them there. The car is basically at the point in its lifecycle that it’s falling apart and nickel and diming mom and dad. Which isn’t great for anyone, but especially not for two disabled people who rely on social security for their income.
Mom just needs a car that can get her to and from town safely. That’s why I’m trying to raise money. I want to give mom something nice for a change . . . she’s only 55—she deserves some nice things. Besides, a dependable car would take something off my dad’s plate so he no longer has to constantly stress about and try to fix it (because that’s not easy for him since he has spina bifida). I had to bring car parts to dad today so he could try to finish fixing the brakes to get mom to town for the x-rays she needs. Any visit out of the house is a potential exposure for covid right now, so please be praying for protection for my parents for that. And also that this infection clears up, that there is no surgery needed, and for mom’s mental stamina. All this stuff wears her down. It’s so hard to have to see your mom literally afraid for her life and have to worry about car issues on top of it.
Organizer
Heather Paul
Organizer
Oldenburg, IN