Recovering mom and dependent daughter need help!

Hello Everyone,

Please forgive any grammar and/or spelling mistakes in advance; the majority of this was written using voice-to-text and my daughter’s (Hello! -Edie, acting as a scribe for my mom) help, for reasons that will become apparent very soon. Now then, with that out of the way.

My name is Nina Dessart, and I’m the almost 60 years-old, widowed parent of one, terrific, 17 year-old daughter, Edie, living in Oakland, California. I've spent my life in the non-profit sector, working for organizations such as STEPS to End Family Violence at Rikers Island Correctional Facility and Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center, in NY, and VNA & Hospice, the San Francisco SPCA and Greenpeace, in the Bay Area. For many years, I’ve also provided writing, editing, project management and bookkeeping services, primarily to nonprofits, as a freelance consultant. For the past five years, this has allowed me to work from home and support my daughter’s homeschooling.

Reaching out for help feels very hard, but I can see no other way forward. The fact of the matter is that for the past seven months, I’ve been experiencing several serious health issues that are preventing me from being able to earn a living. Edie and I desperately need help, both with bills that have now piled up, and with expenses to come, at least over the next few months.

The Camel

The GoFundMe folks say that it’s helpful to include the proverbial camel that prompted you to reach out. For us, the camel was that our cell phone service was/is suspended for lack of payment and an important diagnostic procedure I was scheduled for was postponed because the hospital couldn’t reach me to confirm that I understood the preparation instructions. (In addition to being fairly cut off from the world, we’re also now both in danger of permanently losing our phone numbers, including the one I’ve had for twenty years that is attached to so many accounts, I can’t even begin to think about it!)

The Problem

My not being able to work has meant that we’ve been limping along on Edie's Surviving Dependent Child monthly benefit of $867 from her father’s Social Security account. This week, we were surprised to learn that her school will be holding summer school (for the first time), and that Edie will be graduating in June, rather than December, as originally planned. Unfortunately, because she will no longer be a full-time student when she turns 18, those monthly cash benefits will come to a screeching halt at the end of this month, instead of when she turns 19 next year (I tried and we can’t change this!). She’ll be taking a gap year and has just started to apply for what will be her first real job, other than cat & dog sitting, but it’s income that we can’t yet count on.

So, we now have a gap of several months between her final SS benefit and before I will qualify for, and start to receive, Surviving Spouse benefits (amount yet unknown) from my late husband’s SS account, the first of which will likely be in October.

The Backstory

I broke six bones during the pandemic, and not in one, big, multi-bone accident. Instead, I fell, tripped, or slipped five major times, one of which put me in a knee-high walking boot, 24/7, for 9 months. Then, in a sixth major fall, I hit my head so hard that I got a serious concussion, the third in my lifetime (I was a bit of a tomboy as a kid). Unfortunately, the damage from multiple concussions is cumulative, which is why, seven months later, I am still debilitated by multiple, post-concussion symptoms.

In addition, after about a gazillion tests over many months, we now know that the reason I’ve fallen so many times over the past few years is because, my once-exemplary balance (I was a figure skater at one time, for gosh sake!), has been severely compromised by an elusive and challenging auto-immune disease, pernicious anemia, with which I was finally diagnosed in February. (I’m also receiving treatment for a couple of other conditions, but they don’t have a direct impact on my ability to work or to live a full life.)

The end result of all of this is that there’s a long list of symptoms with which I struggle every day that hamper my ability to do many normal tasks, and which keep me from being able to work and earn a living, and we’re now between the old rock and a hard place. Help!

If anyone's interested in more specifics about what's challenging for me physically, and/or what public benefits we've been reaching out for, some of them are listed below.

How can you help?

GoFundMe says that it can take as much as seven days to verify and link to a bank account, after which it will take two to five days for transferred funds to be available in our bank account. That would be fine, if we weren’t in need of some funds that can be used immediately. So, because we need help now, for those wondering “how can I help?” that are able to donate, please consider donating through:

CashApp to $NinaDessart or Venmo to @NinaDessart

Either way, whether you choose to donate through GoFundMe, CashApp or Venmo, any and all help is greatly appreciated.

Thank you, thank you!

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List of Daily Challenges (abbreviated)

Help We’re Receiving