I feel like I’m drowning today. I was exhausted so I slept for about 23 hours. But it wasn’t until after that that I really began to feel the demons creep into my soul.

Paying out of pocket for a surgery is hard. Medical expenses are tremendous. Yesterday I received in the mail my anesthesia bill, which was almost $3000, that I’ll call in the morning to adjust by paying cash; last time was a fairly substantial discount. And then I received another piece of mail stating that my usual place of medical care has sent a bill to collections for something that should have been paid but wasn’t properly submitted to the insurance company. And this has happened 3 times in the past 6 months. Someone needs to be fired.

It makes me want to cry (and believe me, I did my fair share of it when I saw the amount they say I owe them.) It makes me wants to throw things. It makes me depressed and want to hurt myself because I am so stressed out because of our lack of money due to trying to get the best health care for me. And there are credit card bills to be paid, the mortgage to be paid. And I’ve gotten almost no paycheck in recent weeks because they’re taking their sweet time with the paperwork for my short-term disability.

I’m so overwhelmed I keep crying every time I think about it. I don’t know what to do. I’m wide awake worrying about it. I wish we could get PTO donations from work, but I would never ask anyone to do that. That should be their decision, not mine. But we’re drowning in debt. This wasn’t supposed to happen.

If only our roof had lasted another year. If only our AC hadn’t broken and we needed to replace both the furnace and AC last fall. If only the front bedroom hadn’t had to be entirely redone, also last fall, because of water damage the previous owners managed to hide from us by a strategically placed dresser. And my husband’s 14-year old car is on its last legs.

We had been doing so well. The tax refund helped pay for the roof. We were good. But then I needed this out of pocket surgery and that drained our bank accounts to almost nothing. $16,000 isn’t an easy cost to swallow, even if it is your own health you’re talking about.

So now, we’re broke. And about to become broker. Especially with me being on short-term disability until October and getting paid almost nothing for that.

I hate money. It truly is the root of all evil.