First, let me thank you for visiting my web page.  I am now 60 years old.  I was divorced in 1996 and my wife subsequently moved 1500 miles away leaving me to raise our two pre-teen daughters by myself with no financial help.      

In 2000 my elderly widowed mother became ill and was physically and mentally unable to live by herself.  I spent nights and weekends building an extra bedroom in my basement and moved her in with my daughters and me.  She lived with us for four years. Eventually it became too dangerous for her to stay at my home alone while I was at work and my daughters were gone to school and work.  So, after much soul searching and consultation with social workers and agencies, I decided to move my mother to a local assisted care facility on medicare funding as she had no resources other than social security.  Unfortunately, she only lived there for about a year before she passed away.      

For the past 26 years I have worked as a clerk in a hospital intensive care unit.  It is valuable, satisfying work but intense and, at times, incredibly stressful.  With the departure of my wife, full responsibility for my young daughters and the care of my mother, the stress was greatly magnified.  It is my belief that all of these factors were, in large part, responsible for my developing a heart condition called artial fibrillation, a condition in which the electrical nodes in the heart misfire causing the chamber of the heart called the atria to fibrillate, or beat very erratically and irregularly.  It causes weakness, tiredness and shortness of breath, among other things.
     

However, the most potentially serious result of atrial fibrillation is that, since the atria of the heart is not performing full regular beats, all of the blood may not be expelled from the atria and blood can "pool" in the bottom of the chamber.  This pooled, inactive blood could then possibly clot.  Then when the atria does, eventually, activate a full strong regular heart beat, a small piece of any clot that may have formed might break off and go travelling through the blood stream.  If this clot lodges in the small blood vessels of the brain it could cause a stroke. If it lodged in the pulmonary artery it could cause a pulmonary embolism which is potentially and perhaps immediately fatal. 
     

When my atrial fibrillation first started, around the time my wife left, it was only occasional or what is called paroxysmal A-fib., occuring on and off usually at times of high stress.  However, in the last two years it has become chronic A-fib. I am always in A-fib., 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.  Of course, I've been on various cardiac drugs over the years but none of them were completely effective and they ALL had side effects that made me feel worse than the A-fib.      

My cardiologist has also suggested that I consider cardioversion, a procedure during which I would be "shocked" with difibrillation paddles on the chest.  This is supposed to electrically stimulate the heart to begin beating regularly again.  However, this uncomfortable and potentially dangerous procedure isn't always successful and when it is, a large percentage of the time the result is only temporary and must be done again in the future. I decided against this option.     

It has also been suggested that I consider having a procedure known as radio ablation.  During this procedure a cardiologist would thread a catheter through a large blood vessel in my groin area, up into the heart itself and then supposedly pinpoint what he/she believes to be the electrical  node or nodes that is causing the heart muscle to misfire.  Then they would electrically burn up(destroy) the offending part of my heart. Research has shown that this may or may not eliminate the A-fib. Even if the procedure is successful, here again(like the cardioversion) it is often temporary and needs to be done again later.     

This is a highly invasive, potentially harmful procedure.  In the 26 years that I have worked in hospital ICU's I have seen people undergo this procedure whose arteries and hearts were accidentally punctured.  I have seen more than one person die on the table or shortly thereafter as a result of this procedure.  For obvious reasons, I have decided against this option as well.  So, for now, I am just living with chronic A-fib.
     

Now, you may be wondering why I am asking for your help and I apologize for taking so long to come to THE POINT.  I hope you are still with me and haven't written my off as just another whiney hypochrondriac.  THE POINT: I AM APPROXIMATELY $25,000 IN DEBT (CREDIT CARD AND HOME EQUITY),and I'm about to tell you why.      

Although I feel my work as an ICU clerk is important and has been psychologically rewarding it is a relatively low paying job.  After the departure of my wife I found it extremely difficult to make ends meet and being in my late 40's at the time and with the full time care of my children and mother, wasn't able to improve my wage earning possiblities.  I was, quite frankly, working my hind end off and, with the onset of my heart condition, becoming increasingly more tired.  Consequently, I borrowed money against my home(thankfully I had a home to borrow against) and began to lean heavily on credit cards.      

I am helping my oldest daughter pay for massage therapy school. She only has a few months left till graduation.  My youngest daughter is the single parent of my wonderful granddaughter and is struggling financially as I am.  I still help her out as much as I can.       

So here I am, 60 years old, chronic heart condition, tired most of the time, $25,000 in debt.  I'd like to work a couple more years (if my heart cooperates) and then retire.  However, although I will get a monthly pension and early social security, since I was a relatively low paid clerk all these years it wouldn't be enough to cover my living expenses and make the payments on my debt each month.  I could sell my home but it is a small, modest home and I borrowed so heavily against it that any profit would not pay off all my debt.  I am only able to make minimum monthly payments on my debt now so, of course, my debt is barely getting paid down at all.
     

I could declare bankruptcy and absolve some (not all) of my debt but that would ruin my credit for 7 to 10 years and I don't want to head into my retirement or later working years in that kind of shape. Besides, I feel like I honestly acquired this debt and I want to pay it off. 
     

So I find myself at this point in my life very humbly but honestly and straigtforwardly asking for your help.  If you are the kind of person who feels compelled to offer assistance to another then I am offering you the opportunity to share some of your blessings with me and my family.  Any amount you might offer would be greatly appreciated and my solemn promise to you is that I will "pay forward"  AT LEAST 10% of any offerings I receive to others less fortunate than I and the remaining percentage will only be used to pay down my debt.     

I would like to sincerely thank you, in advance, for any help you may be able to give and my wish for you and yours is that you may be free of suffering and the causes of suffering and that you may be blessed with happiness and the causes of happiness.