Things have been going wrong, but we've had our feet under us and I thought it was going to be ok.

Not anymore, now we are in a very bad place.

April 2025, shortly before summer break, our car was hit in the side by a gig driver w/o his own commercial insurance. Since then we have been dealing with the massive insurance company of a megacorp.

After the accident, our car was undrivable and our lawyer did not recommend repairing it. They acknowledged that either choice might be wrong, they just weren't sure. And the insurance company was fighting every - single - detail, they even tried to get Tom to agree he was half at fault. Heh, the dumbuts didn't know my man redefines epically stubborn.

Anyway, I found a good promo code and we rented from Hertz. When the charges crested $900, we pulled the ripcord.

We were lucky that we were able to rent a friend's car after that. We ended up spending the entire summer without our own car and our savings drained to nearly nothing. That couldn't continue, so we spent $1,300 getting our car street legal. Not fixed, safe and street legal.

As that played out, I had been trying to keep body and (financial) soul together. I was crazy worried, struggling to decide correctly whether to spend or not in every circumstance. I didn't ask for help, which was not a good choice. But every decision felt fraught with so much risk. I guess I thought I should wait, in case we really, really needed it in the future. Sometimes I think with my hair color.

I was sleeping even worse than usual. I was dealing with chores, critter care, changing our insurance, paperwork and emails, etc.

He was driving the bus, going to the chiropractor and trying to keep up with his usual chores. Like using a Weed Wacker with a circular saw blade (instead of strings) or taking his flame thrower to the walks to kill the weeds coming up between the bricks. The whole time he is visibly in pain and watching him struggle just hurt my heart.

I slept even less, but was hoping we'd get enough money to finish fixing the car, pay some bills that had gotten behind while we were paying for car rentals and other unexpected things.

Most people are aware I have significant chronic illnesses, both mental and physical. I try to make time for myself, but during a long term crisis, it's easy to delay self care. Let me be an example and warning for anyone who is putting off the “you” time you know you need.

The last Sunday in July, after months of unreasonably little sleep and a miserable digestive tract, I took a full blown header down our basement stairs. I still flash back on the endless second when I was mid-air and realized how bad this was and then there was pain and a musty scent from the concrete. It could have been worse, there could have been no pain. I caught myself mostly with my face and my right hand.

A wobbly trip up 2 sets of stairs and a shocked hubby later, we were at the ER.

We spent 23 hours there. During that time, our daughter went to the house and checked on the critters and cleaned up a lot of blood. A few hours later our friend Nate checked on the critters and then cleaned up yet more blood. I'm grateful that was taken care of for us

I had 5 visits to X-ray, two CAT scans (with and w/o dye) and an MRI before I was finally released. I was pulling on my pants when an orderly stopped in and gave me a sandwich. Talk about timing!

My prizes included; eleven stitches in my forehead, road rash on half my face, a splint on my badly broken wrist and a hard collar for my cracked C1.

The next 6 months were a blur of pain and helplessness for me. For Tom, it was a worry-filled, nightmare-haunted slog. When he went back to work, I imagine it was a welcome break.

In addition to that fun, insurancecare denied things they should have covered, so we had to pick between out of pocket costs or no treatment. It doesn’t seem to matter how many doctors sign off and submit documentation for treatment. Even some “covered” things cost hundreds in copays. Almost like certain companies have given up even pretending to help people.

I'm embarrassed that it wasn't until 2026 that I remembered how bad of a financial pickle we're in. Our city reassessed real estate 2 years early and there was no milrate change. Tax bills soared, making things even worse.

We now have about $12k owed in house taxes, with $4k is in collections. Sending overdue taxes to collections is a new city policy. And the Texas based collection agency we have to deal with only accepts payment in full.

But wait! There's more!

The city will not accept payments on current taxes if you have anything in collections. And when current taxes age sufficiently, they can be added to your collections debt! They even include additional fees, various charges and steep interest that compounds every damn millisecond!

So there's a continually growing, secured debt that must be paid in full before we are allowed to pay current bills.

I dreamed the city was ripping down the house around me bc they sold it to a cute couple with 2.5 Labradors who get off on paying taxes. I remain unsure whether it was the couple or the dogs who were taxaphiles.

We also owe 2 years of fed taxes. Getting Tom health insurance turned out to be crazy expensive. We let someone, who we thought was competent, calculate how much help (federal money) to accept. He was wrong and now we only owe the IRS $4k.

Interesting fact, the IRS has many payment options and advocate services. The city removed some aid options and increased the difficulty of qualifying for what help remains. I applied thinking we qualified as I am completely disabled. But surprise! I also needed to be 65+ to be approved.

We have been dancing on the wolf's teeth for too long. We're both exhausted and without financial, physical, or emotional reserves. So without help, we will keep sinking deeper.

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