I’ve been putting this off, hoping that something would move or change and let me slide by, but I am going to have to ask the community for help on some emergency expenses.
Have you seen that little poster that says, “I try to take things one day at a time, but lately several days have been ganging up and attacking me at once”? Well, it’s been several months, rather than just days.
Last fall my step mother, who had been hiking up the steep driveway to the old place to feed the feral cat colony- twice daily- for a couple of years, one day, out of the blue..couldn’t. Extreme shortness of breath, dizziness. She didn’t tell me right away, one of the neighbors offered to take her to ER, but she refused, thinking it was a reaction to some sort of mold exposure.
She waited almost a week before saying anything, hoping it would clear up, but no go. When she finally told me, I recognized immediately it wasn’t mold exposure or an infection & dragged her into ER and asked for an EKG & chest x-ray. Results showed sudden onset Atrial Fibrillation and heart failure. They kept her overnight, started her on blood thinners & heart meds, pulled 2,500 cc of fluid off with diuretics and did an echocardiogram that showed her heart was only pumping at 15% of capacity. More than worrisome, and no clue what had triggered it.
Thankfully they only needed to keep her two nights to get her stabilized, but her Forester had died over a year ago and she’d been getting a weekend special car rental from Enterprise once a month to do errands & whatever I couldn’t pick up since then, (I’m still 15 miles away).
Obviously that was no longer workable, it wasn’t safe to have to depend on neighbors if there was an emergency, and the blood thinners require weekly visits until it’s settled, so I hunted up a used 2005 Prius and she bit the bullet & got a car loan from the credit union. Great little car, very clean, ~50mpg, zipped around, went over the hills to Corvallis for the first [unsuccessful] cardioversion attempt, (to shock the heart back to normal rhythm). Then, barely past the first payment, the ‘red triangle of death’ lit up and wouldn’t reset. It needs a new battery pack, (~$1300).
I texted the guy we got it from and he admitted that he’d replaced several of the battery cells, so he sold it knowing that there was an issue, (technically used cars are sold ‘as-is’, but the exception is if the seller knowingly hid something — which his text documents). So I could probably win a small claims case & get him to pay for the new battery, if I could wring it out of him, (120 miles away). Which does nothing for us now.
She has converted back to a normal rhythm, thankfully, so they should be able to get her off the blood thinners, which will cut down drastically on the number of appointments in town for monitoring. And she’s feeling much better, she’s able to walk down the flat part of the driveway & get the mail. There’s a follow up Echo next week to see how much the heart efficiency has improved.
There’s a specialty app, Kardia, that can monitor her EKG on her cell phone , ($85), and transmit to her cardiologist if necessary so she wouldn’t have to find a ride 15 miles into town to make sure she’s not back in A-Fib. I asked the doc if Medicare would cover it if she wrote a ‘script, but apparently not, it’s too new.
And to the ‘ganging up’ subject, while she was in the hospital, the neighbor was supposed to feed her cats, but one of the outdoor cats got in, panicked and injured two kittens. Badly scratched little boy cat’s (Molokai), right eye, and wrenched the girl kitten’s neck, (Panda), causing neuro symptoms, (balance, head shaking, etc). The vet couldn’t save the eye, or the girl kitten :’( , but Milo has recovered fully & is doing great with just one eye.
But Sally couldn’t do the aftercare for his eye, so I had to take him with me. He and the other feral kitten (that I captured for company, so Milo wouldn’t overwhelm my two seniors, Nemi-18, & Rose- 14), need to be neutered and his eye socket sealed, now that it’s healed & clean. We’d had to use the damned Symphony Care Credit card, (25% interest) for the emergency work, ($350), and the neuters & final revision of the eye socket will be another $230. Plus all the extra back & forth from town with my Tacoma and the friend that’s been schlepping her to the doc’s the last several months has run up over $400 on the Shell card, (also 25% interest). So we’re really in a tight place right now. I need to get the Prius back on the road so Sally can get back & forth to doctor visits, (Medicare doesn’t cover transport to medical appointments). The Kardia app is a really good idea, being out in the boonies, and the boys need to be de-gibleted before they start spraying in a building that we’re really not supposed to be camping in.
So, the critical need is- $1300 for the car battery, $85 for the Kardia app & $230 to get the boys finished up and squared away- $1,650.
Taking down the high interest cards for the gas & emergency vet work would be a huge help, (the new meds are making a dent in the budget). :-( That would be another $750, and immensely helpful, but it’s not as critical.
I’m sorry to have to ask, but it’s getting to crunch time. My paypal is ping-pita-5765@opayq.com.