www.cancermonster.net

6:00p

I did try to take it easy today.  We didn’t make it to the library.  I read a lot and did the dishes.  Just waiting.

Dan came home with the mail in hand.  In the stack was the hospital bill.  I shouldn’t have looked at it but I couldn’t help myself.  At the bottom of the fifth page next to the “pay this amount” box was $17,309.  I started to cry. Right there in front of my kids for the first time since this all started I cried.  I couldn’t help it.  This is going to bankrupt us.  The treatment hasn’t even started.  There is at least one major surgery coming.  There will be rehab no matter what the outcome of that will be.  Dripping cocktails and laser light shows. Wheelchairs and maybe prosthetics.  It was too much for that one moment of realization to hold.  It’s one thing to have this happen to me, but what it’s going to do to my family. My husband is just your average working Joe.  If I don’t survive this he will still be bankrupt with three little kids to raise.  I just sat there and cried.  Finally I got up and ran to the back of the motorhome and pulled the divider closed.  It’s hard to weep silently.  I left Dan to explain to the kids and I felt guilty for that too.  It’s too much.  It’s too much.

When Dan came in, he held me and told me not to worry about it. “It doesn’t matter Treese, let all the bills come.  We’ll figure it out later.”

I shop at Goodwill and the Grocery Outlet and used book stores.  Target and Wal-Mart and Costco. One thing my mother taught me was how to buy a lot for a little.   I don’t know how to look at a seventeen thousand dollar bill and not worry.

Not today and not tomorrow either.