Dire need for legal and medical funds!

So...I’m trying to acclimate to handicapped living. Just a few years ago I fell from a second story on a construction site. The visit was a favor for a friend. Tragically, a previous crew removed a stairwell and abandoned the renovation after throwing the debris down the gaping hole. They did not pin the door or even place a warning sign. My flashlight failed that day just before that section of the missing stairwell and I fell a full story to the concrete floor below. My back is wrecked. It’s painful to even dress. Two thoracic surgeons said I’m at risk of becoming a paraplegic if I get rear-ended in a car accident. The surgery needed to get me to walk or sit without pain is extensive and expensive. They need to cut me open from the front and the back to build a support tree on my spine. They advised the recovery would be rather painful and long and that I should expect to take 4 months off work and have a daily caretaker. But I can’t afford to do that…I AM the caretaker for the elder family we have left plus neighbors/elderly friends. And I didn’t have the heart to sue our 30-year family doctor whose site I was inspecting. So I just suffer instead.

I've been a successful published author. My first book earned six figures. And I took those earnings and joined my industry mentor to write a second successful book. The problem is…he embezzled my entire life savings at the time...every penny (about $250K) and placed it on real estate in Hawaii that crashed and lost money. And despite him being a millionaire…he refused to pay the money back (he was rapid cycling bipolar…a tempest in a teapot). He died before I could succeed in recovering my savings and investments. He broke me.

I spoke to lawyers and counselors and they could tell I was a sensitive and emotional dude and suggested I take my energy and write another book instead. And I took that advice. The next book I wrote was, I thought, to help me process PTSD from childhood. My biological father was a hateful and violent man. He beat my sister and me to blackouts. My last memory of him was giving my sister and me one last good beating, locking us in our rooms, and then hearing his brother pull up with a moving van to empty our house while my mother was at work. Since then I'm haunted by night terrors and just terrible dreams as I recall in graphic detail what he did to my sister and mother. That is what my third book was about. I released it for free on Amazon with the hopes to help other survivors of child abuse.

Then as if scripted for a tragedy film…the maternal uncle that rode in on a white horse after my father abandoned us…raped us. Violently. For about 5 years. He was a steroid-abusing powerlifter that liked boys as much as girls as long as it was forceful. That is where my worst PTSD nightmares come from. Night terrors in fact...every week, multiple times per week I wake up gasping for breath with my heart pounding. That SOB died just a few years ago and we discovered later that he had been abusing young and underage children his whole life. All I knew is that he threatened to kill my mom if I ever told a soul and I believed him all the way into adulthood (doctors say that's common).

So, I took any work I could and toughed it through COVID and just tried to keep my nose to the grindstone. But a recent event has further delayed my getting the back surgery that I dearly need. It was the killing of my best buddy, Bigsby Von Lickemstein (“Bigs”…the sweetest and most gentle, loving dachshund). He was recently diagnosed with diabetes during a routine visit. But before we could even fill his meds the next day, I wanted a second opinion and went to the emergency vet to have him evaluated. They said what we knew (diabetes) but wanted to hold him over for evaluation. And that began a terrible predatory journey with this killer practice: AVET...they have been reported to the AG and BBB by multiple people recently for predatory billing. They just built a beautiful multimillion-dollar hospital and every word out of their mouth was all the things they wanted to test for and bracing us for a bewildering plethora of sicknesses that could keep our buddy in the hospital. They said to expect about one thousand dollars per day for his needs…but 5 days later they floored us with a $13,000 bill! It was money I didn’t have but I would earn it no matter what to save our baby. Here’s the problem…they said he urgently needed a blood transfusion, so we said yes! And the next day, they said they didn’t understand why it didn’t help, and Bigs even more desperately needed another transfusion…so we said yes! And the next day the revolving door of attending doctors told us they made a mistake. He noticed bloody bruising all over our pupper’s stomach. The on duty vet apologized and said they made a mistake and both (BOTH) urgent transfusions did not go into Bigs’ bloodstream, but ran

subcutaneous (the bloody bruising they noticed). Stunningly…my 10-year-old still frisky love monkey pulling his antics days prior was now dying…and the hospital simply said they’d give us a discount on the blood transfusions. A discount?!? Urgent blood transfusions were needed and not given. They killed my beautiful dog and handed me a monster vet bill. To their credit, they admitted multiple times IN WRITING (to the BBB) that they failed to get the urgent transfusions into their patient…but they refuse to take financial responsibility for it. And I can’t afford a lawyer to hold them accountable.

I am currently selling my sole source of transportation to continue a legal fight with other local residents against the family vet. I'm fairly homebound...haven't ridden in a vehicle more than 500 miles this past year total (just groceries and meds).

So here we are…a caretaker in need of care. Please help if you can. As I struggle to walk/sit and find meaningful work I can do, I need to find transportation and settle that terrible vet bill. Any donation you can share will truly be a help. I’m living day to day. May peace always be with you. Anthony Rosario Calfo