I Get By With a Little Help from My Friends

A little over a month ago I found out I had a tumor on my pituitary gland, and I had to have brain surgery to remove it. All kinds of things went through my mind when I was given this news, but one of the things that stressed me out the most was how much was this going to cost, not just medically but how much income would I lose? Today I got a partial answer to that question. First a little background: I am still at home and will be until 11/30/15. If you're doing the math, that's over a month away from work. Not to bore you with too many facts, but this length of time requires me to go on Short Term Disability (STD) Most STD plans work in similar ways. You must go through a waiting period before it can even start. Even when mine starts I will only be paid 2/3 of my salary. My waiting period is 14 days. Even using all of my vacation and sick time, I do not have enough to even cover the waiting period in order to be paid for all the time off. Add to that what I found out Monday. CIGNA has not yet approved my STD claim. Translation: I'm not getting paid for anything but the 42 some odd hours of time that I had. Today when I got paid my pay was $500.00 short. I don't know many people who could handle being shorted $500.00 in their pay. I certainly can't. Now, not to worry yet, once they decide that brain surgery is valid to be off from work, the pay will be retroactive, but bills are due when bills are due. When all of this overwhelming news came through to my little family of 3, my sweet girl, Georgi, started a GoFundme page, and my other sweet girl spread the word. We were all blown away as we watched the $20,000 goal grow so quickly to $10,000. Friends and family sent us money in the mail. All out of the goodness of their hearts and with love. That's what it's about....LOVE! I felt like some people may have been judgemental about asking for help. Why? A very good friend of mine said it best, "You only have to ask family once." I am not kidding when I say this. We could not have survived without that money, pure and simple. So, thank you, thank you, thank you!!!!! I wanted to use the Beatle lyric as a title, but it wasn't a little help, it was a LOT! I have no idea what will happen in the next weeks. I am relatively sure that my claim will be approved, but nothing is certain. I am surviving because of all of you! I am overwhelmed! I love you all!