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Give Laura The Gift Of Time

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Howdy.

I've hit rock bottom financially and I am setting up a GoFundMe as a last resort, and I feel awful about this. But it is necessary. Asking for help is something that is very hard for me to do, but here goes – please help me. It would mean the world to me.

My mental and physical health is very, very bad with the poverty. I feel entirely hopeless, anxious, exhausted and depressed. And I worry that all of this will negatively affect my beautiful son, Stuart, who is all set to start University in the fall.





Some Background (sorry it's long)


These are my current diagnoses: Type 1 Diabetes, Autism, PTSD, and Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome (EDS – genetic connective tissue disorder, a rare disease). Part of EDS is weak lungs meaning Asthma, and MCAS (Mast Cell Activation Syndrome meaning an overwhelming allergic reaction). I have had many adverse drug reactions such as an allergy to Penicillin, Desogestrel, Avelox (moxifloxacin) and Cipro (ciprofloxacin).

I was prescribed Avelox in 2009 for recurring pneumonia (you should see the warning label for this class of drugs!). This is the life changing event.

I was fired from my job on March 24, 2010, which in itself is traumatic, because I could no longer do customer service. I handled the situation very badly. I had been sitting in the “to be fired” desk for about a year, next to the exhaust from the server room air conditioner (in the cold), and I became very hopeless and very depressed. Later, I came to understand that this experience amounted to PTSD.

I was able to use my severance and rrsp's for a time. Then I sold my condo on February 28, 2012. Subsequently, I was living on my life savings until they ran out. I used that time to parent my son, which is my priority, and to research really hard as to why I was losing at life all of the time. And why, for example, I needed to take a nap after a shower and every other thing. And why my legs and arms would dislocate in my sleep. I did accomplish some volunteer work as I was really hoping to get back into the workforce (and earn a new reference). I did apply for work now and again to no avail. My job history because awful with no paying work for eight years. Yes, many years of rejection.

The reality is that I have severe and permanent limitations in the mental and physical departments, and so, in the end, I sought out help from different specialists, and aish. And now, I really need your help dear family and friends.

I have some very hard limitations inside my energy cage (meaning chronic fatigue, chronic pain, and keeping a stable blood sugar). Do you see the many problems that can cascade on a bad day? If I had a bad blood sugar day, then I am very tired, and I can't do much at all. Same with a bad anxiety-filled Austistic day. Even with a simple cold, I am done and I have no capacity. In a week, I can only do a few things, then I must rest. Or else the Brain Fog rolls in, and recovery can take a very long time. Depression nips at my heels.

The EDS was pushed into overdrive when I took the antibiotic called Avelox in 2009. That is what the Geneticist told me. Simply put, I am not the same person as before: the damage to my cells is permanent and I have less energy. This is exactly what happens to me when I try to push and drive forward: double vision, pain when hearing, pain when seeing, pain when attempting to speak, pain when moving, dizzy and nauseous and too much pain to fall asleep. Even more pain if blood sugar is outside normal range. Hence meditation until there is less pain, and then a further decision can be made towards self care. No, I can't push through, it is very much like recovering from a concussion.

I will now speak about the Autism. The reality is that I cannot read facial expressions. Put a sheet of emojis in front of me and I will panic because I cannot understand the facial expressions that they represent. And when I am fatigued, which is often these days, I won't even be able to perform enough to seem like a normal person, never mind pretending to be social in social exchanges. When I had energy, my camouflaging and coping techniques were enough. Now I have to develop more efficient ones.

I will now speak to the recent part time job as a kitchen helper from August 2018 to December 2018. It was minimum wage and I was unable to sustain the pace. The first factor is EDS: all of the other days in the week were spent in recovery, as in resting all day and going to bed early at night. Stirring pots for hours caused dislocations in fingertips, wrists, elbows, shoulders, neck, back, ankles, hips, and ribs that my chiropractor had to fix on a constant basis. I drank so much coffee in an effort to have energy for work. On the last day I washed the ceiling. I wanted to be a good worker, and I sacrificed my well being for that. The chiropractor said to never do that again. It took multiple visits to fix my body so that I could be in less pain. The second factor here is that Autistic people are known for their low executive function, and making decisions is exhausting. Fatigue would set in due course due to the amount of decisions I had to make in the kitchen. The third factor is Diabetes Type 1: I did not know when the work day would end. This means that I had to work with a higher blood sugar in order not to crash and need to take a break and eat some more. If the blood sugar low is severe, then I have to take a longer break (and nap), which is simply not allowed in most workplaces. I did not want to disappoint my teammates. I was risking really high blood sugars, because when your body runs out of insulin, then blood sugars spike dramatically, leading to complications. This job was just not enough money to earn a living, and way too much effort. Also the potential for injury was very, very high. Anyway, I did the work and the work was good enough. I wanted to give you a picture of the behind the scenes thinking that went with the work.

The good news is that I now know what is wrong with me, and I am taking steps to address that. Yes. I now know who I am: a capable person who has figured out what kinds of deficits that have plagued her entire life. Managing around my deficits is what I do. And I can rebuild from this, with your help.


About AISH


I should have started the aish process a long time ago. Except that I had been frozen with anxiety, depression, chronic pain and fatigue. Also, I had been grieving about things that I will never be able to do again, like ballroom dancing. Everyday living is hard, now, as I have to judge if that door is too heavy to pull open – my arm could be dislocated in that simple maneuver. I can't sit on many things because it could dislocate a few vertebrae, especially if the chair or couch is fancy. You get the idea.

I have applied to aish and cpp-disability. Now, I just need more time for the process to unfold.


What I am doing now to remedy the situation


I have received some expert advice on navigating the financial supports system.

Between the income support and the child support payments, my rent is paid. I just don't have money for anything else. I am using the Edmonton Food Bank, and the wecan food basket to keep food costs down.

I am redoubling my efforts to look for a job, hopefully a niche one that I can do long term. It might be teaching piano in September (I am all set up for that but it will take some time to acquire some students), and another part time job. It might be odd jobs – hit me up if you live in Edmonton and need help with anything!

As you can see, I am writing and publishing now (gofundme counts as published), which means I must be over my writer's block.

I am walking to exhaustion in an effort to get stronger, the theory being that if I make a muscle or two, then there will be less dislocations in general. And I am learning to take a preemptive nap before an activity so that I don't disintegrate quite so far. This has cut down on the needed recovery time.

In the meantime, I am in real need of some community support. Please Help !!


Please support me as I need more time


If you can spare any money to help while I go through the aish process and the job acquiring process, I would be extremely grateful.

I wouldn't have asked if I wasn't so desperate. It took me a long time to find the specialists who could diagnose me with my rare disease and the Aspergers. And now I think it took too long, and I don't know what is going to happen next.

Stress is a huge complication for EDS, Autism, and Diabetes, and I am in line to be really, really sick. Which I cannot afford to be. With your help, I will be able to stay relatively well and move on and be productive with my life.


What your help will do for me right now


All I need is a little help so that I can finish waiting for aish, and pay some bills. I would get new glasses. And then I can help be there for my son as he starts school in the fall.

I would also apply for disability tax credit.

I want to get stronger and reestablish myself in the community. If you prefer to not use this website, I can also take email money transfers sent to the email address: laura hamilton 7 at shaw dot ca (and no charge from gofundme that way!)

If you are unable to donate at this time, I ask that you help share this campaign on social media. I would welcome, ahem, the exposure.

To anyone and everyone who can or has helped, or has provided support in other ways:


Thank you from the bottom of my heart !!

Laura Hamilton (maiden name was Labrecque)




This last picture is how I look at my son. The other picture you can see that my eyes are not quite pointing at the camera. This is a nuance of Autism which most people can interpret as they want.
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  • Anonymous
    • $20 
    • 4 yrs
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Laura Hamilton
Organizer
Edmonton, AB

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