Ted and Lisa have two children, both of whom are afflicted with autism. Autism is manageable but what happened to their daughter was not. Their daughter was having excruciating headaches and other symptoms. Lisa brought her in for an exam but the doctor couldn’t tell that anything was wrong. So, they scheduled more tests with a specialist.
After months of doctor visits and checking for this and screening for that the doctors finally determined what was wrong. It showed up on a scan of their daughter’s brain. She had a brain tumor. Now, Ted worked full time for the state of Minnesota and Lisa is a homemaker. They are not rich but they are not poor either. They lived a modest home, two cars, and no toys of any kind.
When you find out your child has a brain tumor, nothing else much matters besides caring for and hoping your child gets better. Because of the autism their daughter has, their daughter didn’t fully appreciate what the problem was, which made the matter even worse than it already was. What followed were years of endless doctor appointments, travel expenses, lodging expenses and can you even begin to imagine the medical expenses?
If you think you have seen enormous medical expenses, the medical expenses incurred by their daughter’s condition were enormous. You can do everything right in the world but still file bankruptcy. Now, medical expenses aside, there are numerous other expenses to think about too. Many people think about just the medical expenses, but they forget about all the other expenses.
Work was particularly good to Ted but even then, the amount of time he took off work ate up all of his vacation time and more. Thanks to the generosity of co-workers, who donated some of their vacation time, he could spend more time with his daughter at medical appointments and in some of the very long hospital stays.
When your child is going through chemo and radiation, and losing their hair and some body parts, you don’t frankly give a shit about medical bills do you? No, you don’t. Some of the other expenses they incurred besides time off from work and medical bills include, transportation, parking, hotels, food, snacks, comfort items for their daughter, and other expenses they even forgot about.
My point is they started to use credit cards to get by, to help pay some for some for some of these other expenses. Before you know it, these credit card balances started to add up and so where the monthly payments.
The stress of seeing your child go through this kind of thing is nearly unbearable itself. But then to add the stress of debt you could not keep up on was adding to the stress back at home. Soon, Ted and Lisa found themselves fighting all the time and arguing about the debt. These fights were creating a stress upon their marriages and it was causing them to lose focus on the most important thing- the health of their daughter. Bankruptcy was not something they ever thought about. If either Ted or Lisa were thinking about bankruptcy, neither one of the vocalized that to the other.
We often hear people say things like I was brought up to pay my bills or my parents would never support filing bankruptcy or other similar notions. Filing Chapter 7 Bankruptcy in Woodbury, Minnesota never crossed their minds initially. However, as time progressed, and the financial stress became too much for Ted and Lisa, they were starting to think about the dreaded “B” word.
With all of the debt in play Ted was working more hours and Lisa was trying to work side jobs to earn extra money so they could service the debt incurred. All of these extra hours were taking precious time away from spending time with their daughter when she was in the hospital or at home and needed help. Family and friends came in to help out, but not being there for their daughter themselves was a real burden on Ted and Lisa.
When they came in to see us, they had incurred $27,000.00 in uninsured medical debt and about $36,000.00 in credit card debt.
It was easy to tell, after meeting with Ted and Lisa, that filing a chapter 7 bankruptcy made sense, and they knew it too. Sometimes, filing bankruptcy is like taking crappy tasting medication. You take the crappy tasting medication if you know the medication will cure the underlying problem. Ted and Lisa knew a thing or two about medication and bad tasting medication already.
Medical expenses are something that you simply cannot help. They are tough to get a handle on because they are often unexpected and mostly out of your control. We can all agree that incurring medical debt and expenses relating to medical debt is out of your control. Medical problems are just a fact of life. We are not wired to be perfectly healthy and remain that way for life. And don’t get me started on the failure of health insurance. Can you even call it health insurance these days?
It seems to me health insurance covers less and costs a lot more than it used too. Back to Ted and Lisa.
Filing chapter 7 bankruptcy for Ted and Lisa was a major win. Why? Because eliminated unwanted debt and allowed them to focus on the most important thing in both of their lives- their daughter’s health. Ted stopped working extra hours and Lisa stopped working the part time jobs. Together, they spent more time with their daughter and caring for their daughter.
We all want to pay our debt. But, when debt has taken control of your life and has caused you to lose focus on what is the most important thing in your life- taking care of your family, you get rid of it and win! In the end, their only regret is that they waited so long to file bankruptcy. In other words, people don’t regret filing bankruptcy, they regret the amount of suffering they went through before they filed bankruptcy.
Don’t live with regret.
When the time is right, or when you are ready, reach out to Woodbury, Minnesota’s 24-7 bankruptcy helpline at www.kainscott.com.