Sickness Benifits expire. Need help funding family

TL;DR at bottom

My name is Adam Kemper. Most people in my life know me as Lunch Box. I've been on medical leave since October 2, 2023. At first we thought everything was going to be simple. We knew I had to have a nose surgery to remove a growth in my sinuses and fix my deviated septum. We also knew that I had some bone spurs and it may result in a surgery. Come to find out, it was was all going to happen but it was a lot more serious than we thought. I started getting headaches that would cause intense nausea and vomiting. I found this out by almost puking on my shop manger. Then they got worse where I would be close to blacking out from the pain. It turned out some nerves were being pinched in multiple locations in my neck and I had spinal narrowing making things more difficult along with the bone spurs. They have diagnosed me with spinal stenosis and I am losing cartilage between my C4, C5, C6, and C7 vertebrae. My hands and arms started going numb daily and I often have shocking, electricity feelings running from the tips of my fingers all the way up to my head causing wild pain.

We knew we had limited time to get every thing done and get back to work before I would lose my short term disability/medical leave pay from work. We got every soonest appointment available and were very vigilant on getting every test and scan done ASAP. As soon as the scans and tests were done, I would call the doctor to let them know so we could reschedule immediately and have it reviewed. One Neurosurgeon unfortunately did not have as flexible a schedule to work within and after the first visit, he requested another, better scan to see if he needed to operate through the back of the neck or the front. It was 3 weeks before my next visit with him and at that point he tells us that he won't work on me but knows a good pain doctor to help me out. Unfortunately, that would not allow me to return to work and we later found out that he only does neck fusions which is why he wouldn't work on me. Thankfully, with the help of my PCP, I was able to get a referral to a different Neurosurgeon. This Neurosurgeon did not agree with the first and understood my timeline and the pain that I am consistently in. Within 5 days, I was able to secure a date for surgery on March 28th as well as being placed on the cancellation call in case a sooner opening becomes available. While we are ecstatic to finally get getting this taken care of, it is bittersweet because as now my funding from the Sickness Benefits will expire 2 weeks after my surgery. The Neurosurgeon has told me it will take months to recover before I can go back to work.

My wife is an LMFT and owner of Quilted Heart Marriage & Family Therapy in Weatherford. She is constantly getting new clients, but her business is fairly new and she is currently not making enough to cover the bills till possibly July 1st. On July 1st I can reapply (if needed) to receive sickness benefits again. My expectation is to be back to work before then. Currently I can't do anything that would cause me to exert force without getting a headache. If I don't stop at that first sign of pain, I run the risk of blacking out from the pain or worse. The means everything from digging a small hole, to sweeping our living room, to even having intimate time with my wife. Driving has even become an issue because of the road vibrations.

I am asking for help because I have tried my best to sell my things and raise up funding on my own. Between selling my truck, chickens, and miniatures, I have been trying to find other options. I have had a lot of friends help me out through this really tough time. My job even raised some funds in the beginning to help with surgery costs and medical bills. I even had a friend slip me 100 dollars just because he knew I was struggling. Little did he know how important that was. With that, I was able to purchase pull ups and put gas in both mine and my wife's car eliminating a lot of stress of how she was going to get to work if the sickness check didn't come in soon.

We have cut back on a lot of things to prep for this time. I had well over 40 chickens and now I have 10. Between feeding and caring for them, I just could not keep up. Asking my oldest son to help is very difficult due him being afraid of being pecked or some thing going wrong. Myself and our two 2 sons, ages 9 and 4, are Neuro-divergent. My oldest son is considered 2E (Twice exceptional) but some things prove to be a lot more difficult then one would think. He has high-functioning autism as well as ADHD. My wife has had to find ways to balance working with 2 different agencies as well as her own while taking care of all of the household duties, the kids, and all of the driving back and forth for all of our dr appointments. I can only image the amount of stress my wife handles being the only "normal" person in the house along with the daily stress of being a mom, wife, therapist and super hero.

All in all we need help covering our base bills just to keep every thing afloat. This help would go towards payment for the house, electric, water, cars, internet, food (my wife is an amazing cook), pet/chicken food, and cell phones. We don't have streaming services and I've cut everything down to the minimums. I think 6000 should help us make it till July if need be. Recovery is supposed to be 6-8 weeks to get light duty, but my job does not have that available.

Thank you for just taking the time to read this. I definitely understand times are hard for everyone right now and if all you can do is share and pray for us, please know that we are more grateful than you can imagine.

TL;DR : Running out of funding from work benefits. Sold all I can and still trying. Wife does not make enough yet to cover us. Can't work with out hurting my self. Have surgery the 28th of May but recovery time will still keep me out of work. Looking for help so I can pay base bills and keep the family fed, warm and sheltered.