To Thank You.

You have been lifesavers to my family and me.

As I sit down to write this note the tears are already filling my eyes which is a sign that I made a better decision to write to you than to video this message as I had originally planned. You have been lifesavers to my family and me.

 

A week after I was released from the hospital in December, my dear friend Liza Roos Lucy (loaded with several variations of her homemade chicken soup recipes filling a 60 pound bag) came to visit me at Pickle Road. Liza brought a surprise along with her, our dear, dear friend Meg Cox. Other than Mr. Electric and the gazillion doctors and nurses, Liza and Meg were the only two human faces that I saw and had the opportunity to speak with face-to-face since being admitted to the St. Barnabas Transplant Unit in mid-October as I was in isolation due to ‘white blood cell minus’ and was in tremendously vulnerable to any bacteria or virus.

 

After a few much-needed laughs and catching up, the conversation became very serious. Liza and Meg had discussed the financial burden of being hospitalized for almost 3 months. I had been so ill, even thinking about finances never even entered my head.  Yes, I do have medical insurance through Mr. Electric’s job, but Meg and Liza assured me that even with good insurance the co-pays for specialist after specialist, operations, medications, etc. would be astronomical. With me not being able to work and even contribute to just buying food at this point, they worried whether we would lose our house.

 

One of my personality defects is that I can be very prideful and have, throughout my life, refused to accept anything from anybody. It’s difficult for me to even ask someone for or accept a simple favor. Maybe it’s growing up in the Rust Belt? Maybe it’s because I started working at a very young age? Maybe it’s because I’m so darned independent, what Liza and Meg had been planning, then proposed, literally stopped me in my tracks and made me face my worst nightmare–I had little to no control of my health, my ability to make a living, and and how I might pay these exorbitant bills. I was embarrassed. Meg and Liza wanted to start a GoFundMe Mark Lipinski's Recovery Fund campaign to help us out. After much stomach churning and a lump in my throat I acquiesced.

 

Mr. Electric, protecting me from stress and to help me heal, did not want me to worry about the money and wouldn’t share with me any of the bills that were from oncologists to surgeons to medications. One day, I opened one of the many bills that I found in a pile on the kitchen table – – just my room and board was well over $100,000 more than what we paid for our house! Liza and Meg were right. The bills, huge bills, keep rolling in.

 

It was hard for me to imagine and difficult for me to swallow that anyone would want to, but did, contribute generously to the GoFundMe Mark Lipinski's Recovery Fund . This has been an important lesson in accepting help and gratitude. It has also taught me a lot about my own spirit of giving.

 

Many of the donations were given anonymously on the page while several others sent checks. I don’t know who you are, yet you contributed to my well-being. How do you even begin to thank the myriad of strangers, friends, current and former co-workers, former students, organizations, fellow teachers and fiber artists, and Facebook friends for this kind of generosity? And the comments . . .

 

I have tried many times to read the comments that were left with the donations, and I can’t get through the first couple of pages without great emotion. I will read all of them, I promise, as soon as I can.

 

I am so grateful to those of you who were able to give with an open heart. I can’t tell you how much that means on both an emotional and practical level.  Just know that all of the "Thank You’s” in the world will never be enough. So I will end this note, with great humility and love, as I began it:

 

You have been lifesavers to my family and me. xoxom

 

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