My life up to now has been a roller coaster of very high highs and very low lows. I am using this blog not only as a way to vent my frustration but to find some help out there, anywhere. I am in need of funds to purchase a new hot water heater, pay this years house insurance and buy LP gas to heat our house. Also are we are driving a 20 year old truck that is about to fall apart. I have to travel quite a distance to get my chemo treatments and see doctors. We live in a small town which does not have any public transportation available. I am afraid that one day I will not have any transportation. I have health insurance through the state but since I have had such enormous medical bills they have decided to cut what they will pay and I am beginning to receive medical bills which I don't have the money for. We receive $103.00 a month in food stamps. It is very hard to feed 5 people a month on that amount. My husband is disabled and only receives a very meager disability income. I am unable to work due to incurable lymphoma. I have repeatedly tried to apply for disability benefits but the government seems to think that having incurable lymphoma (of which I still have to take at least two more years of treatment for), having acquired angeoadema, being diabetic, asthmatic and having chronic bronchitis does not qualify me as being disabled. I also have had to had my spleen removed because of the cancer. The loss of this and the fact that the chemo has killed off all my white blood cells I am sick a lot and usually end up in the hospital to get IV antibiotics. (This really puts us in a bind as we have to hire someone to come in and help with the kids and my mother while I am in the hospital. Friends and family have been doing it for quite awile but now that is growing tedious for them.) What company is going to hire me when I probably won't be able to show up to work half the time due to medical appointments or being sick? I have applied to every local, state and government agency I know of and no one has funds for a hot water heater. No one seems to care that I have two small children who have to bathe in cold water which I try to heat up by adding pots of water I have heated on the stove. I did find an agency who gave me a one time grant of $177.00 to buy LP gas. I had the tank filled in December and it was almost $700.00. Besided my two kids, my husband and myself my mother is also liviing in the house with us. She has alzheimers and can not live alone. She receives social security retirment which barely covers her bills. My sister does not want to take care of her and told me to put her in a nursing home to ease our financial, physical and emotional burden. This will not happen as long as I am alive. She has been very good to me and taking care of her is the least I can do. Besides she enjoys the company of my kids. My husband also has a son from a previous relationship of which we are struggling to meet this financial obligations. His son and his son's mother have been nice and not asked for anything but my husband feels both parents should be responsible financially. My husband's parents have money, not a little, but quite a bit. They absolutely refuse to help us out at all. His mother saids that since we are in financial trouble it would be wrong for her to give us any money as it would be spent on bills and not saved. Is she crazy or what? She has also already turned over all assets to my husband's older brother. She originally had it in the will that everything went to him but she was afraid my husband would contest the will so she went ahead and gave him everything before she died. Her reasonsing for this was that she couldn't be sure that our two children were really fathered by my husband and she dislikes the fact that my husband has a child from a previous relationship. She saids that if she leaves my husband anything it will eventually go to his children and she does not want them to profit from her. This coming from a woman who married a man, then moved his widowed brother in their home and had a child from the widowed brother. It is a really weird situation. They all three live together. The brother she married and is still married to sleeps alone in one bedroom. She and the other brother sleep together in a bedroom next door. She refers to herself as "wife" to both of them. Anyway to get back to my thing. We are trying to help ourselves and are trying to utilize what government agencies we can but it just isn't enough. I have even combed the house for things we absolutely don't need to try to sell at flea market. But apparently our junk was worse than junk as I did not even sell enough to cover the cost of the table rental. The government seems to feel it is our own fault that my husband was hit by a drunk driver and left handicapped, that I developed cancer and my mother has alzheimers. We had jobs and were productive citizens until all the bad luck hit us. If anyone knows of an agency who can help us with our financial problems or if anyone has some money they would like to donate to a good cause please contact me. Thank you!! derose62@wmconnect.com