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Need to make money, prayer request
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hello everyone,
I don’t post very often but I am on the forum every day, gleaning wisdom from you all! Just for the sake of disclosure I have 3 kiddos, dd10, ds 7, and dd 5 ( almost 6).
We have had a lot of health issues in our home for a long time and now that most of my issues are getting better, my oldest dd 10 is getting much worse. Without going into a WHOLE BUNCH of history here, I will say that she is COVERED in excema all over her body, has panic attacks almost every day and often more than once a day. She is often unable to sleep at night because of pain and itching from the excema as well as anxiety issues ( the doctor now thinks that the excema has become so bad because of the anxiety, however the anxiety and panic attacks are greatly exacerbated by the pain and itching, etc. it’s a catch 22 type of thing). She has been having these issues for a few years now. However this past year has been SO MUCH WORSE! We have recently found a christian councilor who we think will help with all of this. She is/has been consulting with phsyciatrists who have worked with similar cases and they are all recommending immediate but temporary anxiety medication for her (we are VERY careful about drugs, though, and have mostly used only natural alternatives for most things). Even with a scaled rate, the weekly counseling sessions are costing us about $125 per visit. Plus there will be the medications soon. There will be a lot of cost involved in this either way, even if we we opt to NOT take the drugs because we would have to start using some sort of alternative no matter what. We are still trying to get out of debt from when I was needing so much health care and the cost involved in that put us greatly into debt. We will be able to squeeze out the payments until August, but after that we will need some sort of other income to pay for this. I am trying to come up with a plan to make money now, over the summer, while we don’t have as much work to do with school, so that we can put that towards the payments in the fall. No matter what, this will be hard. We need to try to do this without adding any more stress into our lives, as that would simply be counterproductive for our daughter. Plus, I still need to careful with stress and physical workload because of my own continuing recovery process with so many health issues. We need prayer and ideas! The only real skills I have are all domestic in nature. Cooking, organizing, cleaning, making natural household and hygiene products, childcare, crafting and sewing stuff, etc. I also don’t have a car during weekdays, either. How can I make money for this without completely putting our home and my dd into more stress?
So sorry this turned into such a long post, wasn’t intending to when I started! Honest!
Would appreciate your prayers. And ideas if you have any.
Thanks,
Miranda
Oh, Miranda, I am so sorry to hear of such struggles. Our family will pray for yours and a solution to you needs. The good Lord know all about it and He will provide. I have no advice regarding earning extra income as I would have a difficult time myself, but hopefully others will have some great advice for you.
Praying for you and your dear daughter.
Miranda, I am so sorry to read this, and you have my prayers. Having had a daughter with quite serious issues over the last 4 years, we have had our share of scary medical bills too. I know how hard it is wondering how long you can afford to continue without something giving and it is stressful. We naturally want the best care for our children and sometimes that comes with cost. So having said that I do understand where you are in some ways. If you are very good at sewing and at altering clothing, you could advertise alterations/repairs at home, that would be one thing. Perhaps you could offer child minding to people in your neighborhood, lawn care, house cleaning all in your neighborhood or within walking distance of your home. It is not easy, but I hope some of your skills would be useful to someone. We are in harsh economic times and sadly many people are feeling the pinch and are doing more for themselves…but maybe there is some need in your area. Walking dogs, watching dogs in someones home, picking up dog poop, not glamourous but some people pay for the service – are other ideas off the top of my head. Baking and selling cupcakes/bread/meals depending on your state laws and talents would be another option.
I really hope someone will help, life is pretty tough for many people now, and medical expenses just add to the burden. We have cut out all extras, don’t go to the movies, don’t eat out except on very special occasions and then we get take out and eat at home. We make all our own cleaning products and bake and cook from scratch. We use it up, wear it out and do without…look around your pantry, your tv, phone service etc, and see if you can cut costs there…sell things you don’t need, and don’t buy new unless absolutely necessary…cook cheaper meals and stretch them with veg, beans, and things like that. When we are saving we make pies….vege pie, chicken and veg pie, and pasties – these don’t cost much and are very filling.
I don’t know if any of that helps, but I will pray for you. Please let us know how you get on and if there are any specific things we can pray for. I feel for your daughter, anxiety is a terrible thing, we have it in this family too, and it is something that is hard to deal with – we have found that love, support, and keeping fun in our life has helped, also keep those avenues of communication open with your daughter, love her until you have nothing left to give..at 10 anxiety is very scary. Hugs to you…Linda
You could try to sell your wares on Etsy. I know some people who have done well selling their particular craft. I have been considering selling my crochet/knit projects on there. I sell baked goods around holidays but I will say that it is time consuming and a lot of standing on your feet. I don’t make a ton of money but it helps pay for the extra expenses on holidays. If you could get into a local flea market type set up and bake throughout the week and then set up a booth on Satrday it would probably work better for sales than taking orders.
Babysitting is always an option but that does create some stress in the home depending on the children you watch.
I have tried to help supplement my husbands income many and I find that a multi pronged approach gives better results. I do graphic design/web sites but those jobs are sporadic although they pay really well. I fill in with my baking and hopefully soon with some natural hygiene products I have folks asking me for. I tried teaching piano lessons for a while too.
I’ve been in desperate situations and I know that the storm does pass. This will too.
Tara
If I knew how to come up with extra money, I’d be happy to share, but I don’t. We are stuck, too.
But all of my children have had eczema and I know how frustrating that can be. You see your child suffering and feel so helpless to fix it. I’m so sorry you are going through that. Has she had allergy testing to see what is causing it? My kids have all had allergy triggers and removing the triggers has helped so much.
Praying for you!!!
My son, now 11, also had a patch of ezcema on his stomach area which wrapped around to his back. It looked horrible and several times during his childhood I would get calls from teachers concerned that he had a contagious rash. Yes, it got that bad. His rash worsened in the winter and summer months and it took us forever to find a lotion that would help ease some of the discomfort. It was not a cure by any means, but it helped. Honestly, I cannot recall the lotion but we were able to find it in Walmart over in the medicated lotions section. If by chance you have not searched from an OTC lotion, ask your physician…surely they would know of some available to you as I also do not know the specific extent your daughter is enduring with her eczema.
To give you hope, my son has outgrown his ezcema. If that is such a thing, but he no longer has it. He never too any meds for it and just used that medicated lotion as well as every day lotion to keep the skin moisturized.
Again, I am praying for you and your family. I pray God provides you with what you need and gives you peace….
I just wanted to quickly say (first of all…((hugs…))), but when we took our daughter in for her eczema the dr recommended daily baths – with as little soap as possible, just soaking. Then to put Aquafore (i might have spelled that wrong) all over her body. At the time she had those jammies with the footsies, so we would just put that on before bed ea night. It made a HUGE difference! We also used hydrocordizone (sp, sorry!) for the itching. Thought I would mention it in case u havent tried that yet. The Aquafore can be found in the lotion area.
Mercy
Heres a link.
http://www.aquaphorhealing.com/mobile/
Just soak in water, then get greased up! Lol! It is kind of like a vasoline, but it helps hold the moisture in…it healed my daughter. It was an answered prayer for us.
Thank you for all your prayers and responses.
We have had allerdy testing, made dietary changes (MANY), dermatologists appointments, blood tests of all types, medications, tried to many creams to count, take daily soaking baths with NO soap except all natural, extremely mild solutions in the bath with her, hydrocortizone creams (hated those). Nothing ever got rid of it and anything that started making it better only lasted for a short period of time before it just came back as bad as before. This is why the doctor thinks that the anxiety problems are exacerbating the excema, we have exhausted all other possibilities. She has it all over her body from her scalp to her ankles now and when she has a panic attack it will even come up onto her face (which is not a normal way for excema to behave). It is so bad that during certain phases of it’s course (blisters, itching, open sores and then remission) she is not even able to fully extend her arms and legs without her skin tearing and bleeding. I will look into the auquafore cream, Mercy. Thanks for the suggestion. So, there is not really much left to try out there except to work on the anxiety and hope that the excema starts to clear as well, because of it.
We had already cut down on expenses all we can. No T.V., I make all personal hygiene products and cleaning supplies, hang all laundry, cook from scratch (though with dietary restrictions it can be a little difficult to eat cheaply), don’t buy new things and only buy things when needed, have had a garage sale to pay for clothing for the kids, etc., etc. there are not really any other areas that we can see to save in. We changed our insurance companies to the best priced options available, don’t eat out, conserve gas, etc. I don’t know much about selling things on Etsy and such, but I think I will look into it and give some thought into what I could do there. Thanks for
those suggestions. I am also thinking of looking around to see if anyone in our neighborhood could use help with domestic jobs and see if they are willing to pay. I am not exactly sure how to approach that one, yet. Just knock on doors and ask? Put up posters? Hand out flyers. Or maybe just word of mouth? Not sure yet.
Thanks again for all your prayers and ideas. They are appreciated!
-Miranda
If you want to work from home and can work a couple of hours in the afternoon and/or evening, you might want to see if there is a household discard program in your area that needs telephone solicitors. I used to make calls for Easter Seals, but there are others–AMVETS, Purple Heart, and others. I’m not much for calling strangers on the phone, but once I tried it, I found it to be easy enough to do. You are just calling people on a list from a certain area, telling them the collection truck will be on their street on a certain date, and asking if they have any clothing or household goods to donate.
In the case of Easter Seals, the clothes were sold in a chain of local resale shops. Some people had a problem with this (“I’m donating my clothes, and you turn around and sell them?!”), but our organization is not in the business of distributing clothing to the needy; they assist people with disabilites (like my son, who received speech therapy from one of their offices). They need to raise funds to pay their professional staff and to maintain offices and purchase necessary equipment for therapies/assistance. So, selling the clothes is how they raise those funds. Also, when money is tight (always!), we have benefitted by being able to purchase clothes very affordably from their shops.
Anyway, if you make phone calls for those organizations, they generally pay you a small amount for each home that donates, and you get bonus payments if you get a lot of donations from your call sheet. It’s not a lot, but a month’s pay could cover a couple of counselling sessions or more. If you do a search for “household discard programs” and put in your city name, you would be able to see if there is such a program in your area. Or, just search for those organization names. I liked the fact that I didn’t have to leave home to work and I could take a quick break when I needed to tame a squabble, answer a child’s question, or put a little one to bed.
My son has suffered with eczema on a few places (armpits, behind the knees, etc.), although that is getting much better as he gets older. He is still greatly troubled by psoriasis on his scalp, and it gets soooo scaly and itchy. We have used a couple of shampoos that help but never completely take it away. As soon as we get it under control, it comes back a few days later. He has sort of learned to live with it, and tries to ignore the itchiness. It makes it hard to get him haircuts, though, but I found a hair stylist recently who has had the same thing, so she was very patient and gentle with him.
I also have had eczema on the backs of my hands, and I put coconut oil on my hands throughout the winter. It calms the itchiness for awhile and makes my hands less dry and patchy. You have to get used to walking around with greasy-looking hands for several minutes at a time, though, and it gets on my sheets when I use it at night. (It generally washes out, though.) I also try to get my son to put it on his scalp for about an hour before he shampoos so it loosens the scales a lot, but he doesn’t like the feel of it on his head. Being a boy, he also doesn’t like to bathe and shampoo very often, even though I tell him it will help his scalp. He’d rather scratch his head every two minutes than waste time in the tub, LOL!
I’ll keep you and your family in prayer, Miranda.
Thanks for the suggestion, Sue. I’ll look into it.
And yes, we use coconut oil here A LOT! LOL! I also have excema on my hands ( though not nearly as bad as my dd) and so I also use it regularly. Sometimes she is so greased up after her baths that I’m sure she could slide across the kitchen floor on her tummy like a trained seal …if she really wanted to, that is!
Another cream that seems to help with the pain is called Mayan Magic. We can get it here at a health food/supplement store. It is a natural type cream and is expensive, though, so it gets a little much when you need to use it all over a person’s body. Anyway, maybe it would help your son?
Miranda, so sorry your dd is suffering w/all this. Praying for her and you…I’m sure it’s tough. I don’t know where you live, but my area has a Dr. (below, if interested) that people come from around the world to see. He’s a psychiatrist w/degrees in physiology and biophysics. He uses a natural, multidisciplinary approach. I think he’s a Christian. I imagine this might be a last resort, but just wanted to share because the natural, Christian nutritionist I use highly recommends him, and my neighbor and her ‘skeptical of natural’ husband highly respect him (they’re seeing him for their son). He might know somebody local to you. Insurance pays for some of their treatments, and I didn’t think the prices were out of line w/what you would expect. I hope your dd finds relief soon. Blessings, Gina
P.S. It sounds like you’ve tried everything, but when my ds had an excema patch that wouldn’t go away and I didn’t want the prescription the Dr. recommended, what finally worked was neutrogena oatmeal baths, followed by immediately putting lotion on after the bath to seal the moisture in.
Ralph E. Waldo, M.D., P.C.
Ralph Waldo, M.D. graduated from Indiana University, following which he received an M.S. in Physiology and Biophysics. In 1999 he obtained his Medical Degree from the Indiana University School of Medicine. Serving as Chief Resident during his final year of training, Dr. Waldo completed his residency in Psychiatry at the University of Cincinnati. He became Board Certified by the American Board of Psychiatry and Neurology and practiced psychiatry in Fort Wayne, Indiana for four and one-half years. There he incorporated molecular medicine and biochemistry into his practice.
He is a member of the Society for Advanced Clinical Psychopharmacology and has obtained a certificate to practice advanced clinical psychopharmacology. He speaks on a local and regional level for several pharmaceutical companies.
Dr. Waldo has a special interest in the biochemistry, physiology, genetics and inflammatory responses that occur in the body and gastrointestinal tract affecting our genes, physiology and brain chemicals. Believing that addressing all of these are necessary to fight diseases, he places an emphasis on treating the body as a whole, searching for the common thread that leads to numerous pathological processes. In treating a client he looks at the interaction between genetics and the environment, including life style and diet. By utilizing this approach, it allows his clients to be proactive and participate in the practice of preventative medicine.
Dr. Waldo uses a multidisciplinary approach, including lab testing, to customize and more accurately guide treatment. His emphasis is getting to a patient’s core health issues in order to slow disease progression and repair structures when possible. By incorporating biochemistry, physiology, inflammatory processes, the gastrointestinal system, hormones, genetics and diet, Dr. Waldo customizes treatment and attempts to reduce the number of prescription medications an individual is taking.
Dr. Waldo treats children, adolescents and adults. He works with patients presenting with various disease states including, but not limited to, migraines, fibromyalgia, gastrointestinal disorder, allergies, fatigue, inflammatory conditions, hypertension, heart disease, seizure disorders, early Alzheimer’s, high cholesterol, restless leg syndrome, ADHD, OCD, anxiety and mood issues, insomnia, Aspergers, and autism spectrum disorder. In addition he treats clients with Multiple Sclerosis, Parkinson’s Disease, arthritis and cancer, addressing genetic and biochemical risk factors.
Dr. Waldo enjoys genuine relationships with his clients. He ensures that physicians, therapists and family members are incorporated in the treatment plan, if desired.
I just PM’d you. Ditto what was said about quick baths and Aquaphor. Did anything come back on the allergy testing??
Do a google search for “mechanical turk on amazon”. It is a legitimate way to make some money from home. There are many different little jobs you can do on there. Some pay a few cents… some pay a few dollars. My daughter did it for a couple days, just to see how it worked. Most of the jobs she did on there were for crowdsource. She only made about $25, but she did in fact get the money. You would have to do some looking into it to figure out how it all works, but I do know that it is legitimate. My daughter says that if you get set up to do the transcriptions on there, you can do jobs that pay a little more. She also said don’t do anything that asks anything about your credit score and don’t do anything that seems to good to be true… like a 5 minute survey that will pay you $20.
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