Furloughed Clerical Hoping for a Little Help

As many of you know, our government has been shutdown and that directly impacts me.  We are a two income family with two adult children living away from home and two who are still at home. We essentially live paycheck-to-paycheck while saving where we can. The bills that I typically cover I can't.

As clerical support, I'm on the lower end of federal pay and after paying bills with the last check, things are getting tight.  We are supposed to get paid for our time in furlough when this shutdown ends.  Sadly, later doesn't help with medicines, food, and a mortgage that needs to be paid now. We also are not allowed to work another job without approval from the gov't, and to be honest there are not a lot of people out there willing to hire someone who they know will need to leave as soon as this ends.

To top off the difficulties we are going through now, it's our son's senior year so there are increased expenses we're trying to cover. Our youngest suffers from severe eczema from head-to-toe and even on his eyelids, and during this shutdown I've had to take him to specialists to try to manage his flared symptoms.  With prescription and non-prescription creams, we're paying over $120 a month to do our best to help him be more comfortable.

I'm requesting enough to cover the bills I typically cover in a month to lessen the burden on my husband and to make sure my family can eat and get the medical care they need. Any help would be appreciated and I thank you in advance.