Clusterfucked...

I guess I'll just jump in and say that my husband and I are not the average, American married couple, and I'm anything but an average girl. We don't have an obscene amout of credit card debt- a little under $5,000-ish -we don't own fancy things, we share one car, we still have a tube TV, and my father branded into me the idea of living simply. My husband encourages me to live even simplier...so not a word.

I don't buy new clothes and shoes all the time, and when I do, they are purchased at Target, TJMaxx and Ross. We don't go to fancy restaurants, buy expensive drinks and such. We are pretty chill for the most part. Where does all our money go? Plane tickets, a splurge on concerts, or we turn to the credit cards for the, "Oh, shit" fund.

We rarely ask for help although who doesn't love monetary presents? But June kicked some Chriss' asses and man, today was the day of relief, worry and a damn good cry.

I'm pretty obsessive about budgeting and in turn, I've made Eben the same way. We rarely "overspend." But when it came to vacation this year, we just accepted our defeat. It cost us over $1,000 to fly home to Oregon. Eight hundred round trip for us and $250 to take the the dog with us, which we rationalized because he was little, we could take him as carry on and it was "cheaper than boarding him!" So, the tickets, the bags, the Brodie and everything was put on the credit card.

In the midst of this we are also in an amazing transitional phase where the old will be out and in will come the brand new, so balancing the two became quite the act! So Eben had just been awarded vacation pay, which we knew we'd have to pay rent. We also knew this fall, his pay would change again so we'd figured, we can deal with this later, we can wait! Fun now, pay later!

One glorious day an American Express application came with my name on it and I thought....oooh, now I'm a grown up. So we discussed it and I said, "It might be nice to have this as part of the 'Oh, shit' fund and then on the trip we just don't have to care as much." So I applied and got accepted. I kept my fingers crossed that I would get it in time for vacation so we'd have it for the incidentals and it showed up two days before our flight!

So off we went for the grand Oregon adventure. I swiped that AMEX like nobody's business! Not to mention it saved us in the long run anyway. Half of the crackpot plans we did have in place before we left got changed three days before, anyway so the card just helped us cover the bases no one else could.

We didn't over-spend too much on vacation. It helped us have a lot of fun and do the things we didn't think we could otherwise. I didn't even want to know how much, still don't! When we came home we thought we'd go back to work and be hardworking Americans who slowly pay down their luxuries. But does any story end that way? Of course not.

Eben went back to work for two days before the Clusterfuck cloud rained down on us. On a regular Monday afternoon while watching some comedy special on the Netflix queue and eating a homemade salad things went a bit crazy. I was in my undershirt and underwear getting ready for work when I sat down to eat for a moment and it all took a turn for the scary.

Eben was sitting there staring and looking strange. I joked, "You look disgruntled babe, do you not want to watch this?" All of the sudden his head nodded down low and he went ghost white! He put his salad down and his eyes opened wide and glossy, his body tensed up and he started shaking and having tremors. Every few minutes he would breathe in short, exhaulted breaths, hyperventilating. He couldn't talk. He looked at me like he could hear me but couldn't make out the words. Something was wrong. I panicked.

I fumbled with my phone to call work and say I couldn't come in. I couldn't dial, I could barely think. I called three people in hysterics, probably scaring the shit out of all of them and needed to get Eben some help! Clusterfucked: do we have insurance? NOPE! We're healthy twenty-somethings and it's not in the budget. Off to the walk-in Urgent Care we go!

I shakily get him into the car. He's only half aware of what just happened. I'm crying and swearing. I threw on some crappy, terry-cloth, way-too-short, shorts and a t-shirt and grabbed my flip flops. The poor dog just looked bewildered. We walked into the clinic and I told them he may have had an allergic reaction. They took him back immediately with about 5 other people in there that had been waiting before him just looking annoyed, and I started to fill out paperwork.

The asked me to come back immediately. His eyes were glossy, his memory foggy and when he stuck out his tongue it drooped to the left. They said, "You need to get him to the emergency room right now, it's neurological, and preferably get him there by ambulance." The hospital was across the street. The walk-in clinic didn't even let me finish filling stuff out. They didn't make us pay. I got him to the ER and they took one look at him: "Do you need a doctor?"

Clusterfucked: He was so trembly and trying to piece it together, and the circus began. They asked us what happened in admissions, he gave a full medical history and lack of insurance information. The stress hits me. We move to the emergency room. Who to call, who not to call, what to do? Luckily it was his day off, but it was safe to say he wouldn't be in tomorrow. Thank goodness I had two days off in a row!

The dog! We had to get someone to care for the dog. This is what was racing through my mind. I hate hospitals! Then the waiting game. We had to listen to the amazing bronchitis woman in the next area over, the wheezy lady, Senorita Spanish in pain screaming, "Hay dios mio!," and the gal beside us with a broken bone arguing with everyone. And we just waited for each nurse, doctor, and assistant to come in and let us perform the who-what-when-how ritual. It was 4pm and I was exhausted.

I finally called for back up. The only person who I knew wasn't going to be inconvenienced was my friend from work, whom coincidentally also loved our dog. She came a running. She was amazing and then came the question: "How's Eben?," followed by, "And how are you?" Me, I couldn't even think about me. Me wasn't important...everything else was.

Clusterfucked: They have to test him for everything from epilepsy to stroke. It was likely to be a seizure...then it WAS a seizure. They were keeping him overnight. A ray of hope that Eben saw as a sign because she shared the name of his Grandmother Chriss, came in to give us all the financial help papers. We could deal with all this later. Those bills wouldn't show up any time soon right? I could feel the stress in my ears and toes. This was bad.

Brodie goes with Auntie Em and I come home to pick up the house a bit. It's a scary place without him. Thank goodness for good friends and family checking on us. I'm already calculating the bills in my head and it hurts. I'm ready to put some family members on my speed dial but I'm not ready to fully surrender yet. It's only the first night.

Anti-seizure medicine is on. He's on a liquid diet. MRI at 4am. Neurological tests at 11am day two of the hospital. No food yet. Dinner and no test results. They've taken his blood four times. The IV in his arm is killing him, time to move it. New IV on the hand. The second night I cave and go home with the dog. Our friends visited him in the hospital.

If it weren't for the dog spooning me, I may not have slept. Plus I knew they finally fed Eben. MRI comes back fine, blood work is fine. No word on the neurological results on day three. Ultrasound for the blown out IV. Now he may have cellultitis. The saintly woman comes back to say we qualify for help. We wait. He has a clot in a superficial vein; very painful. We also find out he has sleep apnea and an extremely immense sinus infection. The results are in: small grade seizure, a combination of stress, sinus infection, travelling, and pressure changes gave him a neurological meltdown. No epilepsy. We're hoping for a one time freak accident!

They let us go home. Eben's still shaky and tired but all he wants is to see the dog. We drop off his presciptions at Wal-Mart. Clusterfucked: It's going to be almost 200$! Hello AMEX! We have almost no food. Hello AMEX at Applebees! We're stewing...should we ask for help or wait and see? We waited a lot. Things weren't working. Paychecks were small because of vacation, things were happening late. Bills were wiping us clean and I was desperate for interaction outside of my home. I'd never been so happy to be back at work.

Eben was exhausted and in pain. At home he puttered around the house. He cleaned, cooked, watched TV, played with and walked the dog. He was definitely taken down a few notches but he was stressed about going back to work. He didn't want anyone to fuss about him. It had been an emotionally tumultuous week and I'd had to talk myself into not crying wolf, but finally caved in to asking for help.

Clusterfucked...it was just too much. I started writing these cryptic, angry Facebook statuses and couldn't cry but needed to. Besides Eben, I only had one ally. She told me it was okay to ask for help. It was okay to ask for a lot of help. Eben's Dad was on a military kind of social security budget, my dad just got out of the hospital himself. Eben's mom was great for immediate help but what about next month? We needed to call the wonderful OZ of our family. I was going to shoot high and ask for a lot. Why not? Even if he said no, I'd still taken a leap. I didn't expect the moon but I can hope!

He knew when I called. He's that kind of guy. He asked what he could do to help. I gave him the first offer. It threw him! "What do you need that kind of money for?" To break even I thought! To wipe the slate clean! I immediately became upset and embarrased. I'd gone too far. It was too familiar for him. Like the days when my mom would hit him up for ridiculous amounts. I just estimated the total of those bills and got antsy. Now I felt bad.

I'd asked for a loan. I wanted to pay it back in installments but he said he'd give us a smaller gift instead. Now I just hoped Obama would pay for our entire hospital stay out of his pocket, if I filled out the right paperwork and wrote him a nice note. I found myself searching for one of those posters with the kitty that says, "Hang in there," just to give me some self assurance.

I text my cousin and bore my soul! I told him I shot high and hit rock bottom and felt so terrible for doing that. He told me that's what family is there for, and asking for help is okay, he does it all the time. I felt a bit better.

Clusterfucked: Eben and I feel like failures. We've paid our dues and we don't expect much. That's exactly why I shot so high. We never expected to be given that much -if any- but damn it, if we could just have it to solve our problems and only owe our family we'd do it. I didn't want this to come up at family dinners. I didn't want them to feel like we were broke, lesser beings. But then I started wondering, which let me to start talking to people and I realized, everyone does it!

I think our entire universe is in some kind of debt. Some people don't even care! I bet my entire family has thousands, upon thousands of dollars worth of credit card debt and then some. But we all hide it so well. If we have money to go out, or at least to appear to do so, we're fine. It's all about keeping up appearances. Any sign of weakness is unacceptable!

I'm still stewing a bit, with worry and stress to boot, but we got some help. We really got all we needed. Then I thought about how awesome my bargaining skills were. If I'd shot too low, we may be worse off - haha, kidding - but instead I negotiated myself a payment of rent for August in case it all really went to shit!

I wish we could get past this. I wish Clusterfucked was just a really bad ass word we'd say in jest, instead of the epitome of our situation but it is what it is. Twenty years from now when we get these kinds of phone calls from our neices, nephews, and kids of our own we'll remember that they helped us. So when they ask us for $10,000 to help, because by that time it'll be the equivalent of what $5,000 pays for today, we'll say, "Instead of loaning you that much, I'll just give you $3,000 as a gift and we'll call it even. Take care of yourself and things will get better."

We have to believe that things happen for a reason and this was all a sign. We have to remember that many people have it far worse than we do and that the Clusterfuck is an artful thing, a learning experience really! At the end of the day, we are surrounded by some seriously amazing people and we can still laugh. That's all there is!