This link I'm posting shows a video that needs to be watched. This fits us to a T.
What most people don't understand is why we're in such a financial crisis. It's because of our medical debt. Even when we did have health insurance, the deductibles were outrageous because of their high charges for medical work to be done.
We also have had to see many, many doctors which has cost us even more before we could find diagnosis for my EIGHT diseases.
Because of our current medical debt and financial situation I cannot even go see my doctor to be treated for my Hypothyroidism, Interstitial Cystitis, Endometriosis, Poly Cystic Ovary Syndrome, Infertility (due to these problems), or to be further tested as my doctors have referred and recommended to me that I do (i.e. my heart, and other possible diseases).
We have credit cards that are over maxed out and personal loans that we took out BECAUSE OF OUR MEDICAL DEBT. And that's it. Not for extravagant lifestyles or playing or even for nice things. We've lost our car!! We cannot buy our own clothing, etc etc. I cannot write down the extent of the damage that medical debt has caused here on a public site but I can say that it's ENORMOUS.
Nobody has been able to help us. No consolidation companies or programs or attorneys. They've ALL told us that our ONLY OPTION is to file bankruptcy, which we cannot because we don't even have the funds to do that!
Because of the debt that we have with medical bills and the credit cards to pay for past medical bills and the loans, we get 3-12 calls A DAY with collectors and attorneys harassing and threatening us, even to say "we don't care that you don't have a job we have to be paid and we'll garnish your unemployment if we have to". Tyler has tried EVERYTHING, as have I, to plead with them, threaten them, promise them, beg them, ignore them, work with them, but to no avail. They never keep their side of the bargain, either.
It's completely unfair that I cannot even see my doctor and buy the medications that I NEEEEEED to take care of myself.
How on earth can I have a full time job when the pain I get sometimes is crippling? Of course it's more than I show. I'm not a ball-baby or a wimp. My pain tolerance is extremely high. Just because I don't cry all the time or lay on the couch with my arm over my fore-head sighing from the pain doesn't mean that it's not seriously there. I don't receive much or any sympathy at all from most people, and it's probably because they don't realize what I'm going through.
Pretend you have dull knives and a crappy hand blender and you take them to your insides on a regular basis. That's me almost ALL the time. Try that on for size and see how you like it. These pains wouldn't be so bad or even there at all if I could get the medications that I need and/or the treatment that I need (surgery, chiropractors, etc).
Anyway, please don't frown on us because we are doing poorly financially. It's NOT our fault, as much as many would like to believe. I've had an earful from "friends" (who I've recently dropped) that thought they knew so much better than us on how to do it. If it's one thing I cannot stand it's people who think they know best when they have no idea what they're talking about and are on a "high" because they're doing so well presently; they cannot comprehend what we're going through. They think they know what will help us.
RRIIIGGHHTTT. Yeah, Tyler and I are two really dumb pathetic morons that can't add 1+2. GRRRRRRRR. I HATE being treated like I'm stupid and pathetic. HATE IT.
Okay so here's the link I promised: http://utahcpr.org/
Now I am NOT writing this for sympathy or attention or a "woe is us" thing, but to bring some LIGHT to the subject. I believe that this must be addressed. And what's scary is that Obama recognizes IHC (Intermountain Healthcare) as one of the best in the United States and wants to model our future healthcare system after it. WHAT????? NO WAY!!!!!!!
so, enjoy the video and comment there or here as you like.
So those of you who know us pretty well know that we've always struggled financially. We've been in debt for years and I know that most have assumed it's been because we spend like a couple of idiots.
Well, I'm going to clear a few things up, but mostly I'm going to address the auto industry.
When Tyler and I first got married I had a job and so did Tyler. We both had okay jobs. Mine was the better of the two. I had benefits and salary and Tyler worked as a grunt doing Heating & Air Conditioning for a business that was slowly going out of business.
Within a month, give or take a few days, I got pregnant unexpectedly. I was on birth control and we both wanted to be more financially stable before having children, but God and Lacie both had different plans. She came before we were ready.
I got sick while pregnant with her and almost suffered a miscarriage! My Dr. told me to QUIT my job and get on bed rest or lose my baby. So I quit. I was not sacrificing my own child for stupid money.
I have a bad back, have had a bad back for some time, and Tyler's back wasn't perfect either, so we opted to get a four-door car. We had a two-door, my own I brought into the marriage, and it was just too much pulling the seat forward and bending over carrying heavy things. We learned with a move that it was a very painful thing to endure and figured that with a baby in a car seat it would be even worse.
So with our zero-interest car that we owed a mere 10,000.00 on it and the payments were manageable. We went to Larry H. Miller Used Car Sales in Sandy, Utah, and brought our nice car with us (well, sorda nice. It had a dent in one door and the tranny had died on us TWICE already & been replaced with obviously not a new one each time) and asked what they had that we could do a trade for.
We had 1,000.00 bucks with us for a down payment.
Now this is where we got royally screwed. Totally taken advantage of. We were naive, foolish, young, trusting. We traded in our car and gave them the 1,000.00 bucks (CRY CRY!!!!) for a car worth only about 9,000.00 or 10,000.00 at best. They told us it was worth a lot more than that but it was a brand new car so wasn't in the books yet. It was a Chevy Cavalier, 4-door, automatic, gold, 5,000 miles on it. (We suspect it had been a rental previously).
They took our car that was a midnight blue with a sunroof and in perfect condition minus the smell dent in the door (very easily fixed they assured us) and told us they'd do the trade for about 5,000.00. HALF of what we owed on it. So that was 6,000.00 that was supposed to be taken out of the new car that they said was worth 20,000.00. That's a load of BULL CRAP!!! That car was NOT worth half that much! So we paid them 21,000.00 dollars and they got a FREE car and 1,000.00 in cash!!!
So we got this new crappy, ugly little car (four-doors) for 21,000.00, gave them a nice car for free, and had a payment of 330.00 a month and insurance that was around 500.00 a month (due to bad driving & paying full liability, and Geico is expensive), and these two bills were to be what has sunk us to this day.
We had no idea how awfully we were screwed. We had no idea what pains and trials this would bring us, what sorrows and hardships and debt. It caused us so much pain!!! To this day we are paying for this car.
This car kept us from getting a house of our own when Tyler finally got a good job working out at Tooele Army Depot (he was forced to quit because of nepotism, but for even stupider and more selfish reasons I cannot write here).
We struggled for a while and would NOT have survived had the Church not stepped in and helped us until Tyler got another good job, a year or so later, working for Gunther's Comfort Air in American Fork.
Meantime I got pregnant again and got really sick in this pregnancy.
We did NOT believe in Mother being away from tiny little babies, making day care raise them, while Mother went out to seek her own selfish pursuits in life (i.e. school, career). So I stayed home with the chicklets.
I got very sick and had to have surgery WHILE pregnant with Sophie, the 2nd baby. I was induced early and a tiny, sick baby was born. She wasn't as tiny as they get of course, but for US she was tiny and not ready to be here. I was in labor for 25 hours because she didn't want to come yet; she wasn't ready.
Anyway, after she was born my health deteriorated very rapidly. Nobody believed me. I suffered a great deal. More than anybody knew.
I was diagnosed with Post Postpartum Depression, and then about a year after was diagnosed with severe Acid Reflux Disease & Hypothyroidism. I then broke my foot and walked on it for months before I finally got it checked out. That cost us. But I didn't want to be the weak one, ya know?
Then I got Mono. Then I got into a car accident and hurt my back and neck and broke my right hand. Then I got mono again. Then my thyroid spiraled out of control again.
The entire time I was gaining weight, we were falling further and further into debt.
We took out credit cards and school loans and personal loans at the credit unions to pay our BASIC NECESSITIES. We used them to pay for food, gasoline, insurance, medicine, co-payments, medical debts, phone, you name it. We were SUNK, and continued to sink.
When we moved to Orem we did do one stupid thing. Instead of paying down our stupid car that had been financially killing us for years we used our tax return to buy new furniture. We had finally caught up on most our debt, but school, and so felt like we could finally get something nice.
Well, that would prove to be our next biggest mistake.
I got sicker and sicker. If any of you could possibly comprehend what I've been going through then you'd have some empathy for what we went through, what I went through. It was very, very hard. Not to mention stress from relationships I cannot name here, either.
The medication I was taking for the Postpartum Depression and Anxiety I suffered from had two major side effects: serious drowsiness & insomnia. I didn't realize this.
Well, then I got more sick. I'd wake up in a paralyzed state, LITERALLY! I was exhausted beyond description. My mono flared back up, and I was in severe amounts of pain, weak, SICK.
I then was diagnosed with Sleep Apnea, Migraines (had them daily), and my Endometriosis began to spread and cause more pain and suffering.
I tried to keep a job. I had one for 6 months before I had to quit.
Now I've been diagnosed with Interstitial Cystitis.
I have several diseases that do get debilitating. I don't even know if I've listed everything here.
But the point is, I can almost NOT have a job because of these illnesses I have. They cause MAJOR amounts of pain and suffering, sickness, weakness, fatigue. I cannot even begin to describe it!!
So these were adding to our debt.
Then Tyler lost his job.
Now we've sunk.
We have more than 2200 a month MINIMUM going out and just over 1300 coming in. That's impossible to live by.
So that's why we're where we're at.
P.S. If I lost weight I would NOT lose some of these disease contrary to popular belief. Stop blaming me for our circumstances. I've done my absolute BEST I possibly could do to help, believe me! So has Tyler.
THE END.
Well, so, I'll give an update although I've been putting it off for a while waiting to put on here any GOOD news for a change.
Not much good has happened, quite honestly, but I'll try to note the positive things first, k? :)
Tyler's doing excellent in school. I'm so proud of him! He truly has found his niche. It's great. All the years of hard work and major struggling is paying off in his good grades. It's REALLY lifted his self esteem and confidence. My smart Tyler is really blooming and I ALWAYS knew it was in him! Sure some thought I was too hard on him, but I KNEW he was there. He just hesitated too much, doubted himself, etc. But now he has no need to doubt himself. He just is awesome. :)
I'm proud of myself for keeping my kitchen CLEAN! Yay! A clean kitchen makes me feel so happy. Oh, and I'm also now officially hired by my sweet sister-in-law Alicia to clean her house for her. She's pregnant and soooooo sick the poor girl!! She's quite the trooper and almost never complains but is just more sick than I think I could ever handle! I wish my bro would get his bum in gear and help her out more. I'm a little disappointed in his unhelpful attitude. I want to pay him a piece of my mind LOL. Perhaps he's suffering from depression. That I can understand.
I also got a part-time job!!! YAY!!!!!!! I guess that's really good news, eh?
I get 8 an hour with max 15 hours I can work a week. So far I've only been able to squeeze in 6 hours a week. I know that sounds pathetic, but it's hard to work when the girls are all around me and Tyler has to study for school and the house needs cleaning or the yard needs watering or I'm having a bad period (which is the case right now HAHAHA).
I am technically called the Marketing Director. It's for Women in Business Magazine. It's an excellent magazine and I need to sell advertisement spaces in it!! ANYBODY, PLEASE, ADVERTISE WITH THEM!! I get commission off of it and that's our only hope of help right now financially. Anyway, the prices are very reasonable and I can make almost any deals I want or discounts. It goes to 10,000 people in Utah County and it's a free magazine. It's mailed to them. So it's like one of the most effective ways to advertise. It's a great magazine. Even my mom likes it :). www.WBMagazine.org
Okay, so that's what I'm doing right now.
I just need to get out and go solicit business in the area and what-not. Anybody have businesses they know of that could be interested? You can just pass along the info and I won't tell them who sent it if you don't want me to.
Sophie's been sick the last couple of days. Fever, throwing up, being tired, all that. She just woke up now and it's 4am. UGH!! Tyler and I are both up. He was doing homework and I was catching up with things online.
I'm going to go see a Uro-Gyn. That's a specialist that's in Urology & Gynocology. I'm sooooo not happy to see a man AT ALL. I'm so against men doctors doing women things. It just really grosses me out and freaks me out so bad!!! I've had bad experiences with two docs so I have ligit reasons to be freaked out of them. I think they're all perverts. Period. You can't convince me otherwise so don't even try.
Okay, anyway, I'm going to see this guy cuz my midwives don't know what to do for me or my reg doc (who I can't see anymore anyway cuz I can't pay the man). I have been having MAJOR pain when I go potty. Like BAD pain. Like it feels like my insides are ripping out when I go. Perhaps it's just a really bad pulled muscle, but whatever it is it HURTS. I've been tested a couple of times and one time there was blood but no infection and another time infection and another time just minerals. Okay, I was tested 3 times lol. I can't count at 4 in the morning! :)
Anyway, then another thing that's kinda bothering me. Perhaps it's my diet, or my endometriosis is causing all of these problems, which is very likely, but I go from diarreah to constipation. And it's BAD. Like I cannot go at all and I sit there. And the stomach pain is sooo awful. SO bad. I feel soooo sick. The pain is a mixture between feeling like I have the stomach flu with diarreah pain to gas to cramps and to some other feeling I haven't felt before. So I have no idea what's going on.
I've been putting off telling anyone these problems just cuz I always have so many. And it's so tiring to hear about, I know.
I know a lot of people don't even care and are really calloused and like to think that they'd handle these problems better than I do so I just don't like talking about it sometimes cuz I don't want heartless, cold people around me to make fun of me (which I've been told happens when I write blogs). I want loving, supportive people.
But most importantly, I want ANSWERS and SOLUTIONS!!!
I'm really really really really tired of getting fatter and fatter and FATTER all the time!! And not just fatter, but everything else. My thyroid is screwing up again. It's going more and more hypo, AGAIN, and I'm getting harrier and harrier and losing all the hair on my head. I'm SOOOOOOO UGLY!!!!!!!!!!!! Seriously!!
OH GREAT. Lacie just threw up right now!!!! oh man. WE DON'T EVER EVER GET A BREAK!!!!! It's over and over and over again. one thing after another.
you know I was praying about this CRAP that we go through and you know the answer I got? WE ARE REQUIRED TO GO THROUGH IT. Just like when you're required to take a final to get your final grade, or required to pay your taxes, or required to put gas in your car in order to drive it. Something like that. WE HAVE to go through this. So we just have to endure.
But Heavenly Father did not say we have to do it alone.
That's why we have family, and friends. And thanks to Heavenly Father we have some good family and LOTS of really good friends. :)
You can't pick the fam but you can pick your friends and sometimes you can pick some family to be your friends! hee hee. And we have. (we love you guys so much!).
So anyway, I didn't have a period for two months and was in LOTS of pain. I finally started my monthly joy last weekend (Friday I think) and it's still going strong. Like I'm talking having to change every single hour. It's AWFUL. Tyler wants me to go to the ER tomorrow cuz it's so bad. And it's not letting up. It's getting worse.
SOMEONE PLEASE FIX ME!!!!
*sigh*
I just feel like sobbing right now. I'm sooooo tired. Tired of everything.
One more thing. A nosey neighbor called the police on me.
Why?
Because they assumed I lock my girls outside and won't let them back into the house!!!!! Isn't that AWFUL???
I was sitting on my lawn chair when two cop cars pulled up and said a neighbor called and said I NEVER watch my kids and I ALWAYS lock them out and they'll be banging on the door crying to come in and I won't let them. CAN YOU BELIEVE THAT??? I was SHOCKED. Either Tyler or I are ALWAYS out there with them!!!!
I was more than pissed. I was FURIOUS. So mad that I went to two separate neighbors to ask if they called. Of course both said no.
But Tyler's 100% sure it was the ones across the street. Nosey people that they are. I am soooo mad about this and so is Tyler so we're not letting our girls play with that kid of theirs anymore unless we can see everything that's going on. This mother across the street told Lacie that I should be watching her and not Tyler.
I mean I had to give Sophie a bath cuz she peed her panties and that was FIVE MINUTES and Lacie went back outside and she called the cops. OH MY GOSH.
I HATE this place. :(
The cops were embarrassed to have been called out. They said it was a waste of their time but the have to when someone calls, esp about children. They saw me sitting out there watching my girls and were like, "uh, you obviously are watching your kids". DUH you think? lol
Okay, there's the latest update.
I hope I figure out what the heck is wrong with me before I get too heavy that I'll need bipass surgery and have heart disease and not be able to have any more kids and have a body of a 50 or 60 yr old instead of the 30 yr old. Cuz frankly what I'm going through shouldn't be happening to someone as young as I am.
Oh, it's my birthday next week. I'm going to be so old lol. At least I FEEL super old. (read above for why that is).
I want something pleasant and nice and sweet to surprise me on my birthday. Anything to cheer me up!!! :(
So it was like a miracle happened after Lacie got a blessing last night from her daddy and uncle Glenn Pearson. Today she hasn't had a fever, or at least not much of one anyway, and she hasn't shown that much that she's sick. I mean she still is, but she's MUCH better than yesterday! We were worried for her life yesterday and then today not so much.
We got test results back on two of the things we're worried about. She doesn't have Swine Flu or Pneumonia!!! So that's great news! She won't have to be hospitalized.
Now all we're waiting for are the tests for Diabetes, Celiac Disease, Melanoma, or possibly Leukemia and some other bacteria in her blood.
If her fever persists even a little we're supposed to bring her back on Monday to be tested again.
I feel a little more relieved today, but I am very, very worn out. All that's happened in the last several weeks has really taken it's tole on me. I'm pooped!!!
So we stayed away from everyone today and didn't have anyone over because the doc told us not to, and we still don't know everything she could have.
I do believe in Miracles and I believe there was one that happened here in our house with Lacie.
Now just another miracle that we won't be homeless next month and Tyler will have a job and we'll be able to take care of ourselves for a change! lol
