Every Woman Counts: Lynda’s Cross-Country Journey

Fourteen days driving across the country.  Six weeks in a small hotel room. 
One mother’s mission:

To get to the bottom of her daughter Madicyn’s excruciating and debilitating pain caused by Crohn’s Disease, an inherited condition that she has struggled with for six years and that took her father’s life.

Lynda

Sadly, Lynda’s story is not atypical. When she contacted ASRL in October 2009, Lynda was desperate. After 25 years in sales, she had lost her job, her savings were depleted and Madicyn’s medical condition was so bad that she had not left their Pennsylvania home for a year. Lynda’s wish? Return to California to consult the best Crohn’s Disease experts, even if it meant uprooting their entire life. Yet, with only unemployment payments for income, and the prospect of moving two lives, Lynda was strapped without extra funds to make the 3,000 mile journey.

ASRL immediately worked with Lynda and her social worker to assess their financial needs and make a plan. ASRL agreed to pay for gas and food cards for the long, slow cross-country trip (Madicyn’s pain would require many layover days) and helped with final bills at their old apartment. ASRL also negotiated a hotel discount in their new home of Santa Cruz and assisted them until Lynda could find a clean and affordable apartment. After six long weeks in the hotel, and many days of debilitating pain for Madicyn, mother and daughter finally moved “home” last week.

Today, this duo are settling in their new home near the expert medical care Madicyn desperately needs.  Their only possessions are air mattresses on the floor. Furniture and worldly belongings have yet to arrive. But they are incredibly relieved to finally be at the end of their cross-country journey, even if home is as simple as a microwave and an inflatable mattress.

While mother and daughter make the endless rounds of specialists, tests and hospital emergency rooms, ASRL is making sure that Lynda can be Madicyn’s full-time caregiver until Madicyn is medically stable and Lynda can return to work.

ASRL’s mission is to give the precious gift of time to single parents to be with their seriously ill children by paying urgent expenses when all other resources are exhausted.  For Madicyn, every moment Lynda takes care of her counts:

Madicyn

“Throughout the trials and tribulations, no matter the severity of the cause, my mother has always put her life aside to take care of me and fight for me.  As hard as I know it must be for her, she never complains, she never gives up, and she never fails. She is my hero, my pot of gold at the end of the rainbow, my advocate.”

For Lynda, it’s simple: “Without ASRL, we would be homeless. How do you care for a seriously ill child without a bed to sleep on at night?”

Lynda and Madicyn are just one of hundreds of single parent families whose children face major medical crises that ASRL assists every year by paying their most urgent expenses.  Please consider giving the precious gift of time for other parents of catastrophically ill children by making a financial contribution today.

Earlier this week, Lynda wrote us that the medical news is promising. They are finally getting the answers they deserve, with doctors mapping the root of Madicyn’s pain and planning aggressive treatment. It will be a long and complicated path, but now that Madicyn is finally getting answers, there is hope.

Join us in supporting other single caregivers like Lynda this month by supporting ASRL. Help our team work with the hundreds of single caregivers who are making every moment count for the special children in their lives.