Have to start with some background, growing up we were a middle class family and were not poor but were far from well off. Both parents worked full time factory jobs and by 2000 we owned a home and a car and my parents were beginning to start saving for retirement. In a relative passed away in 2001 and we handled his estate, being his only living relatives that included a home, car and about 200,000.00 in a bank accounts. The estate was protested because there was no will, we would later find out at trial it was the Mormon church behind the legal fight which lasted about 10 years.
In 2004 Robert Streich (my father) went into the hospital for what was supposed to be routine surgery and turned out to be anything but. He developed a blood clot in his head that blocked blood flow to his brain and left him in a coma, the doctor didn’t treat it and just dumped him into an ICU room and we were never told his surgery was over or how it went until we stumbled across him in the room by accident. The shift change was about 12 hours later when the incoming doctor saw Robert and immediately sent him for a CAT scan because it was obvious something was wrong and the clot was found. It was late December and the weather was terrible so while the new doctor wanted to life flight Robert to Pittsburgh the helicopter could not take off or land in the snow storm.
He was able to save Roberts life but the damage was done, he had a stroke that left him in a coma for a few weeks and when he woke up he couldn’t speak or move anything below his neck. He slowly got his speech back and the use of his left side but lost the use of his right hand and leg. There was brain damage and Robert spent the next 7 months in the hospital learning how to redo the simple things like speaking, writing his name (with his left hand that only had 3 fingers, he lost part of his ring finger in the army and his thumb in the factor). Ruth took a sick leave to be by his side most of the time, between her insurance and his Medicare they covered about 95% of his bills which left us a huge stack on top of our own. It was at this time we had to sell Roberts coin collection to pay some of the bills and for the months of home theory he needed.
In 2006 we got a letter from the mortgage company on the house we were trying to inherit that said the check from the estate bounced. After looking into it over 166,000.00 disappeared from the account leaving it empty and us to now pay the bills for not 1 but 2 houses it was around this time that predatory lending was going on and my mother took out a loan on their home to help get all the bills caught up. Even though Ruth was well over 50 and her husband was mentally and physically disabled they approved her for a mortgage. This left the family with 2 mortgages, 2 property taxes and medical bills. After selling my vast trading card collection and our gun collection (which had over 20 guns) we were able to keep things caught up until about 2012.
I had went to part time at work and took care of my father 12 hours a day while my mother worked, I paid them rent and was on SNAP for 2 years. Until St. Patrick’s day 2012 when Ruth came home early from work after having worked over 60 hours that week. I made her visit the hospital where they found a tumor in her colon and rushed her into surgery that night. It was scheduled for 8pm but there was a car accident that took up the ER and only operating doctor for hours so the surgery wasn’t until midnight. Like with Robert something went wrong and Ruth ended up in a coma and was in obvious pain.
After a couple days we had another doctor check her out and he found a collapsed lung and an infection, they spent a week trying to get her better but she was only getting worse. I left my job to care for my father full time by this point and she was on medical leave. The doctor admitted to us that they were not lung specialists and there were none in the area so if they could get her stable they would send her to Pittsburgh. For those 2 weeks Robert was by her side day in and day out holding her hand and crying for her to get better.
Pittsburgh was able to save her life and we didn’t know how bad it was until after she pulled through. The doctor set us down and explained that Ruth should not be alive and that less than 10% of people would have survived what she did. Turns out she had not one but 2 infections including MRSA and while it took 2 months to finally get her to come out of her coma she came out and had no ability to use her hands and feet while needing a breathing tube. She was transferred to Erie PA where they could monitor her 24/7 and after 6 months she was finally able to move her hands and feet but was really weak and had lost over 50 lbs. She woke up with no memory of what had happened and last thing was going into hospital and being diagnosed with cancer. At the 6th month mark Ruth was no longer employed and luckily she had just turned old enough to go on Social Security and Medicare. Going from over 3,000.00 a month in income to 1,000 was a huge hit and we still had 2 properties to pay the bills on. Ruth was released from the hospital in November and while she can walk with a walker she can not bend at the hip because of the surgery and all they removed, she can not close her hand to make a fist but can wiggle her fingers.
We tried everywhere for help with them including Veterans Affairs, Welfare office and finally the dept. of aging. I started getting paid as a home care giver but it wasn’t much and didn’t even cover 1/3 of the money Ruth lost from being employed. I qualified for Medicare and snap as long as I was paying rent to live with Ruth and Robert to take care of them but their medical bills were getting out of control since Medicare only covers about 80% so I looked into assistance for them and as long as I was giving them 500.00 a month for rent they did not qualify. I stopped paying them “rent” and just chipped in to help out with bills, by not paying rent I no longer qualified for assistance and have been without medical since.
The estate was finally settled and we keep receiving 150.00 a month from the person who drained the bank account (while they served no prison time or have to pay no interested on the 166,000 just a monthly payment (which they stopped making)). We allowed the home that we inherited to be taken over by the bank to save money but it left us in huge debt and our home was up for sheriff sale not once but twice and was in foreclosure while Ruth was fighting for her life in the hospital. Luckily I had a 401K and instead of going back to work I had quit so I could cash it out and get the mortgage caught up and property taxes paid.
Since 2012 Ruth’s cancer has returned and she has been in and out of the hospital while going through constant chemo and radiation. We have been doing all we can to pay the medical bills and our own bills including utilities, mortgage, property taxes etc. while putting food on the table and making sure no one goes without their medications. Sadly it got to much and again our home went into sheriff sale and we fell almost 10 months behind on our mortgage and it looked like we were about to become another bankrupt homeless statistic because we had the misfortune to get sick in the one civilized country that being healthy was a for profit business but thanks to great friends (social media since I pretty much haven’t been out with friends or on a date since December 2004) but turns out that even though you might never meet that they can be more of a friend than people you see everyday. Through a gofundme account http://www.gofundme.com/... and these great friends have given us a chance to stay in our home longer than we should have been able to. While it’s a fight day in and day out to pay bills and put food on the table while struggling to keep our home it’s a fight I choose to accept and believe we can pull off. Well we take it day to day I am looking at November 2015 so Ruth and Robert can celebrate their anniversary at home with family and maybe with the help of a few friends that might happen.
Ask yourself “if I get sick in America will I be ok”.