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WELCOME TO MY WORLD
I am totally disabled from two work related injuries. One to my left ankle and one to my low back. I am presently able to do some walking, however I mostly rely on my walker when necessary for balance issues for fear of breaking my hips, right knee and left ankle which all need to be replaced, plus I'm needing major back/neck surgeries, but I can't go forward until my home is made accessible for my wheelchair since I must face this alone. I have osteonecrosis (dead bone), osteoporosis, osteopenia, osteoarthritis, the first three were brought on due to corticosteroid shots over the past 24 years, but the first one mentioned can occur in as short as 3 months of injections or oral form of it. Being disabled has its many challenges, and I have no one to speak to about my struggles, as I'm pretty much a shut in, getting out of my home is very taxing on my strength, and I must do a lot before I ever get out the door, hence the reason I rarely leave home. I always have to take my wheelchair for out of the house trips as I can't walk very far, or stand but a few minutes before more pain sets in, and as mentioned I have terrible balance issues along with twenty-four hour pain. I get pretty depressed at times due to being a forced recluse. I love life, playing my piano and guitar even if I'm no expert at either. I like myself, thank goodness since I spend most of my life alone with the exception of my faithful dog. I'm hearing impaired and wear dual aids usually only when I leave the house, as well as having eye problems. I was also hit with the severest form of Rheumatoid Arthritis, and the company Amgen Wyeth is cutting me off their patient assistance program which I've been on since before it was available to the general public, 1997 when I began being their puppet guinea pig as nothing else works for me. I've been on chemo therapy for the past 7 months, but it's not helping, so says my blood work results. So, I may not be around long after joining you good folks, as there is no help or hope for me. I'm discouraged about life. Where are all the well meaning people which help underprivileged people live their lives with some degree of respect and self reliance to stay independent in their own homes ? I can't seem to get plugged into any resources and I'm scared and mad as hell. Sooo, now that I've lain my life, and aliments out for the world to see is there any hope or help out there for me ? I am somewhat artistic, but don't have the funs to feed that habit, so I just watch television day in, and day out having collected a lot of movies since that's all I get to do, but since those are quite expensive, I rarely have a new movie so I watch a lot of re-runs. I hate my life living as I do and there seems to not be a darn thing I can do to change it, least wise not on my own. My in-ground swimming pool had been vandalized last summer, some idiot thought it would be a good joke to take away my ONLY means of exercise, my homeowners ins. refused to pay for it, and I'm tired of trying to survive a world which clearly doesn't want me in it. My muscles are now pretty much atrophied, and getting worse. I've been through so much the past eight years, attempting the best I can to survive the atrocities others have inflicted into my life. This isn't a blame game, it's fact, which I can prove. I'm beginning to wonder is this the best it's ever going to get. Sometimes, I wish and pray God would just bring me home, out of this nightmare I'm living, and can't seem to wake up from. I don't wish to die, I want very much to live, but geez give a woman a break, quit stomping me down every time I get to my knees. Yes, I realize this quite possibly appears to be a pity party in my writing about part of my life here, and I'm usually not this way. One just gets really tired of the crap people pull. BUT it's been particularly bad the past several months. IF I may share. I received a phone call October 08, telling me I'd be the recipient of $ 35,000.00 to fix up my home with a lot of repairs which its in desperate need of. Well, this man told me all of what would be done, but he kept bringing up an issue which raised my antenna. He brought up the option of my moving into section 8 government housing. I've lived in my home for 33 yrs, and I'm not leaving it unless it's feet first. After having this conversation with him twice, while at my home on two separate occasions, he then sends me a letter, making his third attempt at getting me to move out of my residence, whereby I had already informed him I hold a mortgage. His letter informs me he took it upon himself to contact the cities Housing Authority, giving them MY name, and information, and gave me theirs, as well as, some lady's contact name. This needless to say ticked me off in the third degree. How many times does someone have to be told I'm not interested in leaving my HOME! When I couldn't reach him by phone, I called HUD, asking them if this was there tactics, normal procedures, and/or protocol for them to come into a disabled, low income person's home under the guise of helping to fix it up, just to try to get them to relinquish their property to them. I am left to assume it's for the benefit of the City, since he wasn't offering to purchase it out of his pocket. I haven't a clue. From that point on this man insisted all contact be made in writing. I was told originally I would get a disability walk in bathtub which has a door to enter and vacate through, with thirteen therapy jets which also has a patent on its one minute drain time, whereby one doesn't get cold while waiting to be able to open the door to get out. It is a pricey item, costing nearly 6,000 dollars, but he said it would not be a problem, as well as his telling me the same thing about the wood flooring throughout, except for my kitchen, and bath, which was to be tiled. This tub is a piece of medical equipment, not a jaccuzi, or whirlpool tub, used to help my severe poor circulation. All of these items and more have now been scratched off the project, according to his latest letter of today. He's now deleted many other items off the to do list, the wood floor, tile flooring for kitchen and bath, the 200 amp electrical panel, interior painting, exterior doors including insulated storm doors, fixing the privacy fence (sections which blew over in the last bad storm we had here), fixing the places of broken vinyl siding. His actions are blatantly obvious that he's intentionally retaliating against me, just because I wanted answers as to what exactly was going to be done but especially because I called HUD. This is all verifiable by his own letter's. Especially with the letter I received today. HE refused to make my home wheelchair accessible, I mean I can't get anywhere except my living room and kitchen areas. I can't get my big wheelchair down my hallway, bedrooms or bathroom. I requested he tear out a 14 foot wall between my living room and front bedroom which is a supporting wall, but actually it isn't, as the roofing system is self supporting by the outside four walls to my home, but to be safe the two men which checked it, not wanting to be responsible, said it'd be best to put the support beam in. This would ONLY cost $ 132.00 dollars. My granddaughter, and her two friend's came over last week, and removed a non supporting wall between the back bedroom, and the smaller middle bedroom to join them into one larger room. My house is on a concrete slab, and only has approximately 857 or 875 square feet. It's small. I MUST have access to my home. He refused to remove the living room wall, stating it would cost more money than he had money for the job. REALLY ? Geez, I know it wouldn't take much for the material, however if the labor itself is going to be sucking that 35 thousand out of his hand with some trumped up expense of $ 34,000 to remove the one wall, then yeah I can see it costing more than he has allocated for my home. His letter last week informed me that what ever (( I )) was going to do to my home, had to be done before June 1st, before he would allow the work renovation to begin. This man knows I have no money yet he makes that remark ! When I answered his letter of last week, his letter of today being his response to it, has now deleted other items as well which he had written, and said would be done to my home. I no longer respect, or trust this man. He's apparently using this HUD money as a power struggle over me. You couldn't drag a straight answer from him if HIS life depended on it. It's likened to pulling teeth. I just want to know exactly WHAT is going to be done and how. After all this is MY HOME. I don't know who to turn to, or what to do. He's already proved himself as vindictive due to my having contacted HUD, and has verified this TWICE by letter. It must have made him mad that the one wall so far is out, but HE told me to do what ever needed done. I can only suppose he doesn't wish to fix my home the way (( I )) being the special needs person here needing it to suit my physical needs. Needless to say this has caused me a great deal of stress on my health as my body does not deal with this well at all. I fear, he wants to do things to my home I don't want done. Such as his suggesting to put a refrigerator in my LIVING ROOM, who in their right mind would want THAT ? So he has the attitude it's his way or no way. In fact he wrote me last week with a threat, telling me to chose one of three Options, for him to do the house as HE had planned , or two, get the disability tub I need for my health, and miss out on other items listed which he'd already put in a previous letter stating I'd be getting, ONLY he doesn't elaborate as to what I'd be giving up if I were to take that option 2, by opting for the tub I so desperately need, something he said I could have in the first place, along with the other items which were addressed. What do disabled people do in instances such as mine ? I'm fed up with being run over, and his controlling freaky attitude. I suffered reprisals from HUD once before, nearly 5 yrs ago when GRADD sent someone which was ONLY to have replaced my rotten wooden bathroom window. To keep this short, he didn't have a clue about the job he undertook, and I being ignorant and trusting, thought they certainly wouldn't send someone to do a job they didn't know how to do, especially a window in someone's house. Well that's exactly what they did. So, I was left with 16,000 dollars worth of damage, yes you read that right, sixteen thousand dollars of damage, he destroyed my entire bathroom. Walked off the job, left me without a shower hooked up, no wall to re-hang my bathroom door on, (so no privacy), broke my vanity cabinet and sink, leaving me forced to fill a mug with water from the tub faucet to pour over myself for now nearing 5 yrs. to bath. Now, since I've already had neck surgery with metal in it and back surgery with metal from a fusion, I can't bend very well, and am forced to do so anyway to bath and wash my hair, this of course causing me physical pain every time I bathe. Embarrassing as it is to admit, I don't bathe daily as I once did or would love to do again, due to the additional pain it causes me to accomplish the task.
Welcome to my world. Any miracle workers out there ? I would truly love to have my house put back together and have some sort of peace and a life, even though its within these four walls.
I have my doubts that anyone can or will do anything to change my life for the better, but I can hope can't I ?

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Dear weepingwillow, I'm sorry no one has responded to your post yet. I feel for you very deeply, and wish there was some way I could help, but I can't even help myself most of the time. No one should be treated the way you have. I know exactly what you mean about people not doing what they promise, and never following through on what they are supposed to. I'm having some of the same problems. I'm not a lawyer, but this sounds like fraud to me, and there are laws against it. Have you tried to contact the better business bureau, or your city hall, or mayor even. There has to be someone out there that could get involved and help point you in the right direction. Good luck to you dear, and please come back, this site it very helpful.
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Dear Weeping Willow:

Have you contact ANY support groups for the disabled in your area? That's the first place to start.

You wrote a great deal but you didn't include info that anyone here can actually use to _help_ you, like what city and state you live in. With that information alone someone might be able to refer you to a gov't or charitable agency that might be able to provide you aid.

Also--and please, please don't take this the wrong way, I know you're at a very difficult point in your life and your frustration runs very high right now--but there's a very distinct reason you've had so little response to your post. Your post suffers from what the kids call "tl;dr", which stands for "Too Long, Didn't Read."

You wrote in run-on sentences in a rambling, disconnected style, and posted it all in a single, HUGE paragraph of over 2,200 words! Visually your post is _extremely_ difficult to read. It's hard to follow, hard to keep up with the points you're trying to make, and very, very long.

I suspect most of the folks here who saw your post managed to work their way through the first few sentences, realized how long and confusing your post was, and moved on to another part of this web site. I know I gave up reading right around the point where you tried to tell the story about the man who called you about Section 8 housing, because it was just too confusing.

Do you see how I've broken up my post to make it easy to read? I did it by hitting the "ENTER" key on my keyboard--it's like carriage return on a typewriter (if you're old enough to remember typewriters, heh). Try shortening your sentences, keeping the overall post brief by focusing on the bottom line, and hitting "ENTER" every four or five sentences.

Anyway, if you can maybe come back and either edit down your original or post some short details relevant to your situation, people here might be able to make some useful suggestions.

Good luck!
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Weeping Willow:

It would help to know what City, State you live in, at least, so those who would like to assist you in getting help, could do so.

Have you by chance called Legal Aid to see what they could help you out with, as far as this "guy" goes? Sounds shady, at the least, to me.
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Dear WheepingWillow,

I read your entire post, twice. It sounds like the phone call you received Oct 08 was from a bonafide shyster. I suggest you gather all of the letters from him and turn in as much information as you can about him to your local Consumer Protection Agency; consider it an act of public service.

Also, maybe you could send that same info to your local news channel that does investigative reporting - our local is called Channel 2 wants to know - they can get just about any guy to do the right thing, but if not they at least run the him out of town by letting everyone know what he's up to. It may never result in you receiving the $35,000 in needed home repairs, but you may help protect someone else from his underhanded tactics. A lot of people in your situation would be so eager to get some help that they would ignore the warning signs, that is if they ever even saw them.

Check out this website to see what assistance you may be eligible to receive. http://www.govbenefits.gov Click the benefits tab and complete the anonymous questionnaire - you just might be surprised by the results.

I read you have been in your home for 33 years, however; that doesn't necessarily mean that you qualify as a senior citizen, but if you do then your local senior resource center will connect you with services that can assist you in your situation. If you don't qualify as a senior, then contact social services for your area. There is help available, but you must seek it out, just keep this old saying in mind "Pray to God, but row towards shore."

I like your handle, WheepingWillow. Did you know the Weeping Willow has the ability to absorb standing water, and when planted near trouble spots where water stands in puddles, they disappear. And even though Weeping Willows are often found near rivers, lakes and wetlands, they can grow just about anywhere, demonstrating tolerance to drought. Also, did you know that almost all Biblical references to this group of trees are associated with joyfulness and fertility. Oh, one more thing, the roots of the willow tree will spread out much farther than any other tree to find the water they need.

You chose a name that is highly symbolic, and I guess the point I'm trying to make is...that you my dear are stronger and far more resilient than you probably ever imagined. I will keep you in my prayers. YOU WILL FIND the help you need, and YOU ARE the miracle worker that will change your life for the better. In the meanwhile, keep posting because that helps you to release some of your stress and letting go of stress is always a good start for healing. I mean it, keep posting, I would like to hear back from you before the end of June. June 2009 that is.

Take care,
I'm sending lots of
healing love your way,
Jamie
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