My mother and grandmother both watch your show everyday. I would too, except that I have a full-time job that keeps me out of the house most of the day. But, I never miss it when I have those few precious days off.
I have seen you bring important social issues into the light so that people may be aware of them. I have seen you help people through difficult situations in their lives. I have also seen you make people's fondest dreams come true. My situation fits best into the last category. However, I do not wish for fame or fortune, or even a new car to replace my barely-alive Buick that is now composed of at least 80% rust.
I know very much what my greatest wish would be, because I am reminded of it every time my father comes home.
I am 22 years old now, and have moved back in with my parents for the moment. As I mentioned before, I work a full-time job, and I put as much as I can into my parent's account to help out each month. I really didn't think things were as bad as they are.
My family has always been plagued with a variety of medical problems. I myself am fortunate to have insurance through where I work, otherwise it would cost me hundreds in medication and doctor's visits, and that's on a monthly basis. My grandmother has insurance of her own because my grandfather worked for the state. My parents have no insurance whatsoever. My mother has fibromyalgia, arthritis, scoliosis, and numerous other ailments (including an ulcer that burst and would have killed her if she hadn't been in the hospital when it happened.) My grandmother, who also lives with us, is just as bad off. Neither my mother nor grandmother can work anymore. My mother can't even seamstress anymore because she lost the feeling in her hands after the ulcer burst. Despite all this, we have been managing as best as can be expected. In our selfishness, though, we all completely overlooked the most important person in our family: The one working overtime (as well as working side jobs) just to pay the bills and put food on the table. I feel sickened and ashamed at myself for not noticing sooner. How had I not noticed when my father started walking so slowly; using a cane just to get around the house?
My father (technically my stepfather, but he's been there for me since I was 3) has been a painter by trade for nearly three decades. Every single day of those 29 years he has spent standing, or kneeling, for hours on end. He has climbed scaffolding, hauled paint buckets, and lord only knows what else to make homes, schools, and businesses presentable for their occupants. He has done this all with next to no cartilage in his knees.
He had a doctor's appointment earlier today, where they x-rayed his knees. The doctor held up the x-ray, looked him in the eyes, and asked him, "....you can WALK???"
It's only now that I've begun remembering the times growing up where my father was no longer able to pick me up like he used to. I've been making it a point to bring him things he needs, and help him carry my grandmother's oxygen tank to the second floor where her bedroom is (because the men who deliver the tank apparently won't do it, and I'm the only other person in the house who can even budge the things, let alone stand half the load of one). We live in a 3-story house, and I'm the only one living here that can walk up the stairs unassisted, or without pain. In these past few months, I can barely stand watching my father when he gets up. He is only 48 years old, and other than his knees and eyes, he has maintained his health quite well. Yet, when he stands and tries to walk, it takes everything I can muster not to start bawling. My father is 6'4" tall, but he barely makes 6'2" because of how extremely bowed his legs are. It looks as though they are twisted a good 45 degrees at least at the knees. I can't even begin to imagine the pain he goes through every single moment he is awake. And yet, he has gone to work early every morning on those knees, and worked himself ragged just for our bare essentials. That is, until recently.
Because of the extreme pain he faces everyday, he is on extremely strong pain medication. It was because of this that he was recently laid off of work. Apparently, even though the medication takes away the pain, it makes him a "liability" because he's not supposed to be climbing ladders or operating heavy machinery while on it. We are now facing the fact that we're going to have no income at all besides what I put into the checkbook.
According to the doctor, it's going to cost $27,000 to replace his knees. However, there's just no way we can afford that, even in payments (especially considering that, even if he weren't currently laid off, my dad would have to take off of work for many months for the procedure and the healing, and he would have been the only one making the money in our family). I can't stand to see him go on like this, and honestly, he can't. It's amazing that he's still able to walk at all in his current condition, especially considering how many stairs we have in our house, plus the work that's involved in taking care of my grandmother. We've been recently discussing selling everything we can possibly part with in our house, including beloved family heirlooms. My grandmother even offered that we take out a loan against her life insurance policies. Now, admittedly, I don't know much about finances, as I've always been terrible with numbers, and I'm just a youngin' only now trying to get on my feet and learn how to live. Nevertheless, I know that no matter what we sell, there's just no way we can come up with that kind of money. My father's knees can't really afford to wait until we do.
I know that I'm young, and that I can just go get funding and student loans to go to the kinds of colleges that will take me where I want to go in life, at which point I start paying off my education. That's the way life works. Other than the debt from my previous two years in college, I'm practically a clean slate. As soon as I go back to college, I won't have to pay on those loans until I graduate at whatever level I aspire to. I merely have to work towards my goals, but my parents unfortunately don't have those options or opportunities. If my father doesn't work, my family doesn't have money. Without the money, his knees are going to keep deteriorating (if there's really much left to deteriorate at this point). If his knees keep deteriorating, he eventually won't be able to work at all...because he won't even be able to walk. Also, he may not even be able to have his old job back even if he got the operation, because apparently, the fact that his knee implants would be partially made of plastic again makes him a "liability". When I leave here, I don't want to leave a family that can't manage on it's own. Grandma lives with us because we can't even afford to put her in a nursing home, so we certainly can't afford in-home care of any sort. My parents are already buried in debt, and looking into declaring bankruptcy.. I can't stand the thought of them sitting here with absolutely nothing, or worse (the threat of losing the house altogether has come up more than once).
What we need now is a miracle. I don't honestly know quite what to ask for. Perhaps I'm just being selfish in approaching anyone else about this situation, but I really don't know what else to do. I don't ask that anyone pay for the operation. That would be beyond miraculous. But, what I would like more than anything else is for someone to show us some way, any way, that we can manage this dilemma. What do other people do in these situations? I've looked to so many places, but gotten so few real answers. I'm sure in today's society, saving one man's knees is hardly worth having a "benefit" or a "fund-raiser" of any sort...but it means the world to us. It means the world to me. My father is like a superman to me. He practically rescued my family when he came into our lives. He has also overcome a lot of things in his own life as well (including alcoholism - he has been proudly sober for 10 years now).
While I admit that I originally fought a lot with my father when he first became a part of our family (and yes, we do still have our occasional tiffs) I have always been thankful to have him as a father. He raised me right. He has always supported me in everything I've set out to do, and he has always been a wonderful influence on me.
Now, I feel so useless to him, because I feel like there's nothing I can do to help him. I would give anything to be able to give him his new knees myself, but I just don't have anything to give except my love and support. I barely make enough to give them what it's worth for putting up with me, plus what has to go towards my car insurance, my credit card bill (which only exists because I used my card to get my textbooks in college) and my student loans (as well as getting my own food). I owe so much to this man, and yet there is so little I can do for him.
I know there are millions of people out there that are far worse off than we are. I know that what I ask seems selfish in the face of the people that don't even have homes to live in (though without any income, my parents wouldn't have a home to live in either...). I apologize greatly for this. But, I can't help it. When someone has suffered so much to make you the person that you are, and given you all that they can just so you can have a decent life, you feel obligated to that person, especially if they mean as much to you as my father means to me.
I don't quite know what I'm asking for, except, as I said, for a miracle. Some call you a miracle-worker, Oprah. Do you have any miracles left for my father? Even the tiniest miracle would be like a godsend. Even if you could just show us the way, that would be miraculous enough for us.
I know you're a busy woman with millions of fans and people just like me that write to you, and I understand if you're forced to overlook this in the face of all the others that need the kind of help that you give everyday . But, even if you yourself see this letter, at least I will not have written it in vain.
Thank you ever so much for your time, as well as your patience.
Sincerely,
Stephanie J. Buth
~ * ~
Here's hoping that this letter makes it to her, and that she maybe makes this dream come true...
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