Family of Four, Two Brain Surgeries, loss of income.

My dearly beloved friends/family are in need for support and help during a very fragile time in their life journey. With as much love and support they have given to me (a young college student who has had a hard time getting started on my own), it deeply saddens my heart to see them struggle to be there for their son’s air force basic training graduation, simply because of a financial crisis. I have faith that there must be a way with God’s will for this need to be met.

 I feel strongly that this story needs to be exposed for there may be no opportunity for help if it is not, however please allow me to keep all the members of this family and myself anonymous. When the seven year-old little girl of this family of four endured major brain surgery and lost a big gap of her childhood spending it at hospitals and numerous doctors’ appointments, they witnessed a miracle. This brain surgery is necessary in order to prevent the brain malformation from worsening. Arnold Chiari malformation is not widely known and has no cure, however there is help offered for managing it. Although this malformation inflicts many symptoms on a person, unfortunately the majority of help offered is just pain management for the constant migraines, physical and emotional pain Chiari patients have to live with every day. Doctors continue to try to find ways to help ease these numerous symptoms, but the families affected will struggle to pay medical bills for the rest of their life.

            A twenty-two year long teaching career has just been put on hold for the mother of this family because at age 45 she too was diagnosed with Chiari Malformation. Brain surgery for the mother was much more life threatening because of how late it was discovered. After a difficult but successful surgery, she is now recovering which takes a full year to know if it will have helped her quality of life. Three months after surgery, I witnessed her trying to go back to teaching when school started as though nothing happened. Shortly she realized that it was physically impossible to work, and was faced with giving up her career and retiring with far less than planned income to live on, or face agonizing pain and go back to work in order to provide for her family. Now with a twenty year-old son, and a sixteen year-old daughter who will be graduating from homeschool this December and entering college, there is a huge financial need to provide for. The son, not wanting to cause any financial burden on his family chose to enlist in the Air Force Reserves and will return to college after basic training. As close of a family that this is, the struggle for money to travel to San Antonio Texas for the son’s graduation is so painful to see and definitely weighs heavy on their hearts and minds.

I want to give them ease of mind and heart to see that there is a way.

  I see the basement in their home as a key to survival. It may well provide the family shelter in this ongoing storm. All that space and a location two miles from the college give it the potential to provide the income they truly need to replace the lost income of the mother, allow them to keep their home, provide for their family, and make the trip to be there for their son. With the loss of income and too much debt load to get a loan, they need a way to fund the basement apartment. Because it is raw space, estimates to do this are around $20,000.