Help Sarah and Jake get back to baseline

Hey, I’m Jacob, but a lot of you guys know me better as JakeT, the guy who does the weekly story on Control Station Enclave with a weird obsession with the Cat’s Paw. The beautiful woman next to me in that picture is my fiancée, Sarah. At the beginning of September, I got off a double shift to find out she was in the ER, having lost vision in her right eye. She has Multiple Sclerosis and a history of neurological health problems, so this was a pretty terrifying possible escalation. Thus began a sleepless 72 hour odyssey of two ERs, a 96 mile drive, one neurologist, four separate ophthalmologists, and unanticipated laser eye surgery to correct a pair of retinal tears that were thankfully caught in time to prevent permanent loss of vision.

I’m incredibly grateful that the ophthalmology team was able to save her vision and relieved that it was not an escalation in her MS. Unfortunately, between missing work, the travel required for follow-ups, co-pays, and the dozen other expenses that come with any medical emergency. We aren’t poor, I consider us very fortunate, but her medical conditions require additional expenses (traveling to see specialists, service animal, etc.) and our finances are usually pretty tight. This disrupted things pretty severely and the problem has compounded over time as we’ve shuffled money around to pay bills, dealt with other minor emergencies, and taken out loans to cover the gaps.

I hate doing this, I don’t like asking other people to deal with things that are my responsibility. There’s a part of me that feels like I shouldn’t be doing this, that the necessities are being covered and things aren’t completely desperate. But no matter how I run the numbers, even with both of us pulling all the overtime we can, that situation is just a few months or one more minor emergency away, a fact reinforced by a recent situation that left both of us without the vehicles we need to get to work.

So that’s what gets us here. I’m not asking you guys to clear up my debts. I just need you guys to help deal with the stuff that we’ve fallen behind on so that we can get back to baseline. My current estimate is that 2,078$ should do that. That would cover all the bills we’re behind on and the loans we’ve had to take to cover the gaps. It’s a lot, I know, and If I’m being honest, I don’t expect to actually get that much but I appreciate anything you guys can give. If you can’t, I understand completely.

Thanks, for this, and for anyone who takes the time to read my story.