Pain

Down Home....I have great empathy for you. I understand completely where you are coming from and the worry and stress you are going thru. We are in a situation quite like yours.

Our son, 42, was struck down quickly and with no warning with a heart condition. He had to have a defibrillator implanted and within a few short months it fired, saving his life but it caused him to lose his job as a 20 yr. union electrician service truck driver as he had to quit driving for 6 months and his company required a doctor's release which the doctor would not give him ergo he lost his job. He has now been off work for a year but due to arrhythmias and dizziness he is not allowed on ladders and around high voltage and can only go a few days and then has severe arrhythmias. He has had ablation and it is helping somewhat along with high doses of meds but his quality of life isn't good. His outlook and his wife's is up one day then down the next.

We are also helping a lot with their finances. He has 2 young boys and what he has is a genetic condition that is requiring the boys to have to have heart tests every 6 months. We have had to pay their cobra insurance because he has had so many hospital visits and emergency room visits. We are also helping them with other bills as his wife's job ended at the end of school since she is a preschool teacher (but has no degree and no health insurance). She will be going back to that job next week but the wage is not great and no insurance is offered...but at least it is something.

I don't understand the cynical attitude of some of the responders. I don't feel we are enabling when we are helping (at a figure similar to yours). I feel that we are just sharing our good fortune with them. It isn't like either of these men, our sons, asked for these health problems...and I lose sleep at night just thinking of the worry that my son and his family are experiencing. My husband and I have had a good life and never had anything like this strike us down...this young man is blood of our blood and we are willing to help out and be there for them even if it means us sacrificing. So yes, I do understand and very much understand that as a parent you don't shut your love and help off from family when they are down and out.

Read the story of the Prodigal Son in the bible. Even though he squandered his inheritance his father took him back and gave him the best he had when he returned along with unconditional love. God does the same for us...we aren't worthy of his love but he loves us anyway with no strings attached. Perhaps we should try harder to love well. I feel sad to think that the responders with their cynical comments to you seem to be people who might turn their back on their own families in time of need. Again, my son didn't do anything to cause his heart condition and this man's son didn't ask for his health condition how can you be so callus. Don't fail to think that you couldn't be in the same position as us when the morning dawns.

I will keep your son and his family in my prayers and ask the same for my son, Eric and his family. Mostly pray for peace for both that they might realize God is in control and that we as their parents find a peace. God sees that you are willing to help your family and I feel he will honor that. One last thing that goes thru my mind is that I also know that someday that my son and daughter in law could very well be the ones that we will have to lean on when we might lose our health...can we do less?