Things are very bad at Casa Escapee right now.
I am a contractor. I work at home; I get paid by the piece.
And over the last four years, there haven't been many pieces.
It all started with the doctor who accidentally pierced my cornea, and the surgery that didn't work and left me with a lump of scar tissue. My vision is altered, it hurts a lot, it itches, but it works, and there's no way I'm having a cornea transplant. It's been offered, but there are people much worse off than me.
I suffered a brain injury when I was a baby. It left me clumsy, and I've always fallen a lot. In my childhood, the only thing a concussion meant was your poor mother having to wake you up every couple of hours to make sure you were still in there.
But in 2011, I suffered a whopper in a restaurant (slipped on spilled food, speared a huge wooden table with my head), and developed post-concussion syndrome. When you have that, and you have no balance, no short-term memory, your speech is all tangled and you can't remember things, you can't do the kind of work I do. When you continue to suffer concussions (like when the suitcase fell on my head at the drugstore that rhymes with Ballgreen's, or others I just can't remember, but there were a lot), you get grounded by your neurologist. You can't work.
I got very lucky. Last summer I had to be hospitalized for vertigo, and all my doctors talked to each other, and they decided on a treatment plan. I spent the fall and spring having vestibular physical therapy and speech therapy and cognitive therapy at a local hospital that saved my life. I can walk now, my balance is much better, I can talk, my memory is taking hold again.
There have been other things mixed in with this - whooping cough, pneumonia - but I am doing so much better. I can drive.
The problem is that I lost nearly 2 years of work. Our savings are smashed. We still owe medical bills (copays mount up) and we had to use the credit card a lot. And other things - the damn car, for one.
So I have resorted to Go Fund Me. It's not a large amount. I just want to pay that damn hospital bill and the credit card balance.
If you can help, even a little, I will be so glad. I used my Facebook account to establish the Go Fund Me thing, so you all get to find out my name: Lynn Loper. Be my friend if you want to be. I'd love that.
Please help me if you can.