Hello, I am a rural mail carrier for the United States Postal Service in my early fifties living in the Midwest with my two adult sons, ages 25 and 21.

I have found myself in a very tough spot and need to ask for help.

For the entirety of 2025, I was extremely sick due to complications from diverticulitis. My sigmoid colon had become so scarred from repeated flair-ups that it was internally narrowing. This caused non-stop pain. I was also in a constant state of low-level infection between flair-ups.

Just about everything I ate went straight through me, I started rapidly losing weight, went septic at one point, had more than one trip to the emergency room. Around this time, I started having a hard time getting in to see my doctor. After several rescheduled, delayed, and canceled appointments I had to switch doctors. I was finally able to get in to see a gastroenterologist a few months after switching doctors and was told I would need to have a sigmoid colectomy to correct my condition.

I was finally able to get the surgery in late January this year. In the meantime, I missed a lot of work due to being sick, visited the emergency room again, and my car broke down.

Two weeks into a seven week recovery from the surgery, my supervisor informed me that I was out of paid time off. I thought I would have enough to cover most of my recovery, but since I had been out sick so much the previous year, my sick time and annual time for this year had been reduced.

I went five weeks without a paycheck. Once I had recovered and returned to work, nearly my entire first paycheck had to go toward repairing my car. I fell behind on my rent. The management team at my apartment had worked with me all last year when I was out sick. The management team had completely changed after I recovered from surgery and would not work with me.

I have to move at the end of this month (with a 5 day grace period) and have been applying for rentals like crazy for the last month. This must be how someone recently got a hold of my debit card number, and went on a shopping spree before fraud detection kicked in. I’ve had to move what was left into a different account and lock down my current debt card, as well as wait to get my money back from the unauthorized charges.

I know all of this sounds crazy. I agree, it does. It’s also indicative of how easily things can spiral out of control when health issues are involved.

I am recovered now, I have been working six days a week and trying to find a new rental. I just need help getting back on my feet, I need help with moving expenses, deposits, application fees. I have fought too hard for everything too hard just for it all to fall apart because I was sick and then had a series of setbacks while recovering.

If you can donate anything, five dollars, ten dollars, every bit helps. If you can’t donate (I know times are rough for everyone) at least share this link among your friends.

Thank you.