Substantial Family Surgical Bills

Before I tell our story, it pains me that I’ve had to swallow my pride and ask for help. As many of you know, I am an elementary art teacher of 10+ years. My hubby lost his job when our son was about 3 months old, a few weeks after my maternity leave ended and I had returned to work. We decided that it was better for him to stay at home with our son vs putting him in daycare because in reality, we would be paying around the same amount for daycare as he would bring in (daycare costs are ridiculous!) He was able to collect unemployment for 6 months and then sh*t hit the fan and Dace needed surgery and we had bills that needed paying. Fast forward to today and I’m SO happy that D can be at home with his dad but we are working on a teacher’s salary and can’t pay outstanding medical bills. Some are about to go into collections and we CANNOT have my wages garnished because we barely make ends meet as it is and I make “too much” to qualify for food stamps, etc. Please continue reading to hear our story...

This little guy kinda put us through the ringer early on. Within the first few weeks of his life, he needed to have a MRI on his hips due to him being breech, needed to pediatric cardiologist, as well as a pediatric urologist. Luckily for us, his MRI for his hips were perfect, he only had an innocent heart murmur, requiring no other attention or doctor visits, but he did have some urologic issues, which would require a surgery. Without going into too much detail of why he needed the surgery (more out of his future privacy), if it wasn’t taken care of it could cause issues with infertility later in life, possible hernias, and other medical issues. ((If you would like to know his medical prognosis, you can get in contact with me and we can discuss it)) So at 8 months old, we handed our first born over to be put under for surgery. It was the hardest thing I had to do. I was in tears telling the anestheogist “please make sure he wakes up.” I’m tearing up thinking of this moment. After surgery, we found out that he also had a hernia that was undetected from his MRI when he was 2 months old, so not only did surgery repair what we were expecting but the additional problem. We luckily had the $400 for the copay to the surgical center but after it was all said and done, we owe the urologist $1000 from his surgery and an additional bill to his anesthesiologist. Thanks insurance :(

But where does the additional money we are asking for come from? Well, my dear husband required foot surgery, his 3rd mind you, to retrieve the screws that were put in his big toes when he was 18 and 19 years old. His body eventually rejected the screws and they were literally pushing themselves out of his toes. Causing him ALOT of pain and poor quality of life, since you need to walk and stand in daily life; so it was a necessity to have the surgery done. We found out that he needed this when I was about 5 months pregnant. We have some outstanding bills from this that we need to get paid and cleared off our credit. He will still need an additional surgery, as the podiatrist could only completely get out one of the screws and unfortunately snapped the head off the other, leaving it to work itself out.  

We are so thankful for any money we receive. Seriously cannot thank you enough in helping us get back on track