The financial considerations surrounding all this unfolding human drama has been difficult for me to confront so far, for a number of reasons.
1) I just plain don't have the energy to deal with thinking about how we're going to pay for all this. All our energy is expended visiting the hospital and keeping our 16-month-old fed, rested and happy on the homefront. Taken together, it's all incredibly exhausting. Besides that, I'm basically resigned to some sort of indentured servitude when all is said and done.
2) Both my wife and I are simply sleep-deprived and not thinking clearly anyway and we certainly aren't lucid enough to cram our brains with numbers and financial options and loopholes.
3) I think there's a valid argument to be made that we're both just slightly depressed. I don't know what depression feels like, but I do know I haven't felt remotely normal, psychologically, since Finn died.
4) What efforts we have embarked on when it comes to securing aid has resulted in us being told we have too much in assets to qualify. In order to obtain medical assistance, you apparently first have to empty your bank accounts and renounce all wordly possessions. That's somewhat depressing in its own unique way.
5) We're simply focused on the day-to-day journey of eventually bringing Zoey home, even though by the time we do so, "home" could consist of a van down by the river.
Posted by Ryan at February 4, 2011 06:30 PM | TrackBackIf possible, and I know you don't have time to do it now, but at some point maybe you (or possibly someone who knows everything about your finances)could get hold of a financial planner, to ask for advice, or maybe a way to hide some of your assets so that you could qualify for some type of aid. Or grant possibly? Have them talk to the financial dept at the hospital as well, they should have some idea of where you could get some help. There is no way in the world that you could ever expect to pay for icu for as long as this is gonna take to get her home.
There has to be someone who can give you advice.
In the meantime, they sell new identities on the corner, change your name, email in your work, and move to Ireland. I think your name should be Angus O'Shamus. With your wife's red hair, you'll blend easily.
it's all so messed up. i won't even digress into the horrible incongruencies between our country's "christian values" and lack of care for the truly sick and needy.
sure, thinking about money is probably prudent, but i don't think it's emotionally possible at this point.
not to make a direct comparison but i had to decide yesterday whether or not to spend thousands of dollars to try to treat my sick cat. in the end the money wasn't the factor, but it was presented as an issue and i wrestled with it.
maybe really learning in a gut-wrenching personal way that life does not have a price tag is sort of valuable in it's own way.
Posted by: amyleblanc at February 8, 2011 11:57 AMI hate to ask this, but did you guys just not have health insurance? Or is it maxed out?
Short of that, seriously -- talk to a financial planner. My guess is that your best bet might be to declare bankruptcy and get a homestead exception for your house. That way your credit could be repaired in 7 years and you could just be done. Otherwise I'd suggest selling your house to a relative, paying rent, and having rent go to house payments, but that starts to get into fraud-y territory.
Posted by: Joshua at February 9, 2011 11:50 PM
Stumble It!
