Olivia Sander and Midnight Moo Cat

Hi, I'm Olivia. Both my cat Midnight Moo and I are diabetic. We were both well-controlled and doing okay. Then I caught COVID back in December and I was hit hard by it. I was out of work for nearly two weeks. I'm a contractor, so I have no paid sick leave. It was a hard hit to take two weeks without pay. I wound up with long COVID or post-COVID syndrome (among other names for it) and it threw my blood glucose so far off that even with my medication I was higher than I had been before I began treatment. It was making me very sick, but I kept working and my medical bills wound up going on a credit card that I could not pay off as fast as I wanted to. Then my cat's diabetes went off the rails too, first dropping so low that I came close to losing him, and then swinging up 250 points above where he should be. This led to pricey vet visits to get it under control, and more burden on the credit card.

Now with the new year, my insurance has reset. I have the best I could get through my husband's work, but even the best offered to the employees of his company is a crazy high deductible. And my doctor visits for diabetes, macular degeneration, diabetic retinopathy, cataracts, and glaucoma keep going on, as do the vet visits to try and get Moo back to healthy. Our credit card is now nearly maxed out and even the minimum payment is punishing. Plus the new medical expenses, and the high cost of medication for both me and my cat. We have tried our best to get through, but the last bill cycle wiped out our checking entirely and drained all but $56 from our savings. All of this is happening as I am looking for a permanent position so I can get off of the contractor assignments and have some benefits to help us out of this situation. But now I've run out of what time I had to land something before we wound up in a financial hole.

Our mortgage payment comes up halfway through next month, I have outstanding medical bills I haven't been able to afford to pay off entirely, and another visit with my retinopathy specialist in two weeks. As things stand right now, we can't afford all of this, though we are trying to find other ways to cover it by ourselves as much as we can. I hate asking, but my family and I could use any help we can get to keep from drowning under all the medical expenses while I try to find other ways to improve our situation.

These funds would let me pay off the outstanding bills, keep up with our medical costs and medications for a little longer while I search for a better situation, and potentially pay down our one credit card just enough that I can manage the payments on my own again. Anything would be a huge help. Even sharing this so it reaches a wider audience would be a huge help.

Thank you for taking the time to look at this, and for any help that you can give if you are able.