Hello everybody. My name is Devon. I am here reluctantly to ask for help in a moment of dire need for me, and for my family. This post is for–and dedicated to–my Uncle, Jamie; a great man who has lived a great life, and has done more, much more than his part to help me and his sister, who is of course, my mother. Many years ago she was diagnosed with RSD or reflex sympathetic dystrophy–now now as complex regional pain syndrome. It’s her leg you’re looking at here, being cleaned and scraped without her leg brace on during brief and painful moments of care… moments handled entirely by my Uncle.
She also needs help moving around sometimes, help bathing, and even help brushing her hair.
As for me, well, I have multiple sclerosis, a somewhat recent diagnosis I’ve been struggling with for quite some time now. I spent over a decade of my life in the trenches, working multiple retail jobs, having long hours and rough shifts, and even picking up side work in writing articles and online reviews, the basic act of which now gives me a heap of trouble; even for this write-up I’ve had to use voice to text and (unfortunately) AI-based spellchecking and word completion to make sure I didn’t do any mistakes.
As you can see, I’m on a whole lot of medicines, including a few very expensive ones for my condition, and I need special equipment to walk around, move in general, or even to just sit or lay down, all of which can be uncomfortable at best, or painful and debilitating at worst. I’m embarrassed to say that all of our savings were pretty much wiped out by the need to get me taken care of, including some refitting of my bedroom and bathroom in progress to make them easier for me to use.
For years I committed my time, energy, and effort helping to take care of my mom, more than happy to do my part for a woman who has been obviously very important to my life, and someone I love, as well as someone I hate seeing go through this. But now, I can’t. I can no longer work a steady job, or even find work willing to accept my necessary medical complications, my inability to do certain tasks, or my needs such as random time off, medical equipment, and my medicine specifications. It’s tough out there.
But in all this time, my Uncle has once again stepped up to do more than his part. He cooks, he cleans, he does all of our driving, he helps with our medicines and both of our horrible schedules, he does everything he can to keep us happy, healthy, and homed, but we’re having some trouble. Now he’s working two jobs, spending all of his free time helping us or doing what he can to bring in money, and all of that is threatened by our car trouble, and medical bills.
This is in Medical, but truth be told I didn’t know where else to put it. Our car is undergoing a catastrophic failure, and while it works to some degree, it’s already crashed out on us multiple times, and it’s only a matter of time before whatever is wrong with it kills it for good. This is of course terrible for numerous reasons; it’s our only transportation, our means of getting groceries AND our medicine, and is the means both me and my mother can get to our various medical appointments. It dying on us while Uncle is out and about would be bad enough, but there’s also the chance it finally goes with one of us in the car, leaving me or worse, my mother, out stranded somewhere on the road. Needless to say, we wouldn’t be able to afford the towing required, much less the repairs on top of that and any transportation we would need to ferry us home.
As I said above, I’m making this on behalf of my Uncle, someone who has never asked for a handout in his life, and someone who never would. It was my mom’s idea, and one I greatly agree with. It does feel harsh, a painful solution in a troubled time, but I would do anything for the man, who has spent so much of his life taking care of me and my mother, and even more so now that I’m crippled alongside her. It’s just that right now, in this emergency situation, all I can do is ask for help.
So please, consider my ask. I know it’s a good bit of money, but I wouldn’t be here if we didn’t need it, and I hope I can help when we need it, even if just to see the relief on my Uncle’s face if and when I can tell him the good news.
If you find this story touching, please donate if and only if you can, and feel free to share it. I appreciate any and all acts of charity, and I promise you one day when I can pay it forward, I will.
I’d like to give one last thanks to my friend Jeff for helping me type this up and get everything uploaded, and finally I’d like to leave you with a picture of Evie, and of course, I will provide more pictures of our pups on demand.
Thank you for reading and sharing, and please have a great day.
