{For The Full Story from Stephanie Scroll Down}

~Long Story Short~

I am staring this GoFundMe for a fellow Disney Cast Member, Stephanie Waller and her family. This family has been through a lot the last couple of years and are in need of some support. Her husband Ken has been struggling with health issues that have progressively gotten worse.

They lost their home abruptly due to the landlord selling the property. During the midst of this they were dealing with ongoing car troubles. Following this was a very slow season at work for us at Disney. Money wasn’t coming in as it typically would and this caused a lot of setbacks for her family. Ken then had to have a hip replacement. Once Ken was released to work again it was very challenging to accomplish with only one working vehicle at the time when Stephanie works 50-55+ hours a week.

Shortly after Ken started working again he landed in the emergency room for heart failure and was told to stop working. Extreme measures have been taken to get Ken on disability but with no luck. Ken’s doctors expressed serious concerns regarding his lung health and referred him to a specialist. Lung Board felt his condition was serious enough to be considered a top priority. They wanted to begin treatment and testing immediately. Meanwhile their health insurance denied this treatment. Upon searching for new insurance, all of them refused to take the information. The reason being that they would require new referrals from his primary physician.

This is only a small glimpse of the challenges this family has been facing. Stephanie and her family are very kind and giving people. Stephanie drove out of her way for an entire year to help give me a ride to work when I was without a car. Never once did she ask for anything in return. She works very hard, works long hours and still manages to bring homemade cookies to work for everyone. I hope to do all I can to help this family and share their story.

If you are unable to donate we ask that you just share this story in support of this amazing family in need.

~The Full Story from Stephanie and her family~

I always find that the best place to start is the beginning. This story begins in 2022 when our lives began to change drastically. After 12 years of Ken running his lawn care business and 10

years of me working part time at Disney we found ourselves at a crossroad. I finally found myself a full time position with Disney with full benefits. Ken sold his business that same week with hopes of buying a food truck and focusing on his health with the help of my new insurance policy. His goal was to find out answers to his rising blood pressure and excessive joint pain. We planned to spend time just working and building our credit. We were not prepared for

anything that was about to happen.

On April 28th, 2022 our landlord of the last ten years knocked on our door. He had sold the property. I will never forget the conversation. I asked how much time we had. He replied “plenty” June 30th was our deadline. Anastasia, who was six at the time, exclaimed happily “That’s my BIRTHDAY!”. Our landlord quickly excused himself, leaving us to figure out our next step. We were losing our home, on our child’s birthday, and at the worst possible time with the market.

We immediately began looking to where we would go and talking to several realtors. Our search wasn’t easy with a family of four, barely two months of full time, struggling credit, and four furry pets. Exactly one week after our landlord dropped his bomb on us, we very unexpectedly and mysteriously lost one of our sweet Minnie. She died in Braden’s arms on the way to the emergency vet. We were devastated, and we never understood how she went from happy and playing earlier in the day to taking her last breath that evening. Even though we knew we

weren’t staying, we left her buried under a tree we had planted in the yard. For the next month, much of our time and money was spent applying for rentals. All of them disappeared before we could see them or turned out to be scams. As May drew to an end, half of our time was gone, and we still had no idea where we were going to go. That’s when my car blew a head gasket. I was now without a car as well as everything else.

On June 9th, 2022, that money we had planned to use for the food truck was used to put down

an offer on a house. The offer was accepted, and we were set to close on June 21st. It was a little farther from work, but we wanted to make it work.

Due to unforeseen circumstances, our close date and my car repairs were pushed back. Both closing costs and car repairs were also thousands higher than quoted. We finally got my car

back on June 27. We closed on the house on June 29th. We had 24 hours, our daughter’s 7th birthday, to move.

As we got settled in the new house, we returned our focus on Ken’s health. Ken was still struggling with getting his blood pressure under control, and he was informed he needed his hips replaced. He would be unable to work for an indefinite amount of time. By this time, we

were already sinking in debt. I continued to work 50 hours a week to hold it together.

Summer was rough. Work was dreadfully slow, I was barely making enough to get me to and from work and food on the table. We fell behind on everything. My mental health was struggling, at best.

September 2022 started with Ken getting his hip replaced. He also applied for Social Security Disability to help with the both the household and medical bills that were piling up. He was

released to return to work mid-December, but chose to wait until after the New Year to start searching for work because we still only had one vehicle that I needed 13 hours a day, five days a week.

We moved into 2023 deeply in debt. In the Spring, we were finally able to get both vehicles running again. Ken was starting to do lawn care again to try to help with our finances. Things were looking up. We weren’t necessarily moving forward, but maybe treading water.

Summer was once again brutal. Ken ended the season by landing in the emergency room in heart failure. He was told to stop working. We contacted disability to see if his case could be expedited, but no luck. We contacted lawyers to see if they could help to speed up the process.

They all said we had to wait for Ken’s application to go through the processing stage with an approval or denial before they could get involved.

Fall of 2023 Ken was still suffering extensive joint pain. After the holidays, he was scheduled for his right hip replacement for February 2024.

In the summer of 2024, Ken started noticing that small tasks were leaving him breathless. He spoke to his doctor and was referred to a lung specialist. After a few tests, he was diagnosed with ILD (Interstitial Lung Disease). His lung doctor referred him to Shand’s Medical Institute to get the best possible treatment.

On our second visit to Shand’s, Ken's doctor informed us he had serious concerns about Ken’s health and requested presenting his case to the University of Florida’s Health Shand’s Lung Board. We agreed, and within 48 hours that doctor called us to say the the Lung Board felt his condition was serious enough to be considered a top priority. They wanted to begin treatment and testing immediately. Their first orders were for a biopsy of his lungs to try to pinpoint the cause of his condition, and a heart catheter. They were prepared to do this within days of the Lung Board’s decision. However, our health insurance denied this treatment due to Shand’s being out of network. This pushed these procedures back months, which also pushed any possible answers and treatment back months.

As of January 1, 2025 our insurance company was bought out by Cigna. We hoped that this change might be the answer we were looking for to get Ken’s care back on track. Once again, we were wrong and this has become just another hurdle. On January 2nd, Ken started

contacting his doctors with our new insurance policy. All of them refused to take the information, saying that they would require new referrals from his primary physician before they could update

that information. We won’t know if this will affect treatment from Shand’s until Ken’s local lung and heart doctors are under the new policy and can send a new referral there as well.

Meanwhile, we are still waiting on an answer from SSDI and struggling financially. We’ve written three letters to our local congressman as we continue to try to get some sort of resolution. We are living week to week, one bill at a time, and the hits just keep coming. We have been through so much in the last few years.

As a family and for the sake of our mental health we need to get back to enjoying life, not just fighting to survive another day.