Quist Family's Emergency Monsoon Season

Hi, my name is Ariel Quist and my family has spent the last 2 years in a constant state of "When it rains, it pours". We've managed fine on our own, rolling with the punches, but Summer 2023 has pushed us past our limit.

My husband, Nathan, was put on the wrong psych medication, causing a mental breakdown requiring hospitalization. His providers didn't believe the medication could be the problem, so they put him in outpatient group therapy, had him meet with his therapist twice a week, rotated him through several different psych meds and a brain stimulation treatment, and even put him on short-term disability from work before we'd had enough. Nathan told his psych NP that he was going to come off the medication one way or another, the only difference would be if the provider told him how to do so safely or not. After some back and forth- including trying to convince him to take a higher dose of the medication in question- he was finally given instructions to come off of the medication.

Within a week of being down at the 1/4 dosage, Nathan was feeling improvement.

Now that we have confirmed the medication was causing his severe depression and taken him off of it, he has hope for further improvement beyond "slightly above rock bottom"...but it will still take time.

During this time, I also broke my arm and our upstairs bathroom flooded through the ceiling and all over our downstairs.

Did I mention it was just the summer? As in June through August??

We were given the wrong information regarding compensation while taking short-term disability and anticipated only some loss of income (in the 20% range), but today we received the short term disability compensation and it was less than 50% pay. We could barely cover our mortgage and utilities on that.

I've gotten a full time job at a school, but because it's a school, my pay is prorated so I will receive paychecks in the summer and won't start until almost a month after I started. It also isn't enough even in two months to cover the loss of wages we experienced due to my husband's mental health crisis.

We have also had to pay for additional treatments that are not covered 100% by our insurance even though we already reached our out of pocket maximum, boxes and packing materials and WiFi extenders and things of that nature in order to still functionally live in our home while waiting for insurance to approve renovations, and I had to get a professional wardrobe in a new size because the flooding affected our kitchen and we have been eating out 3 times a day for nearly two months now. (Thankfully increased food cost is reimbursed through insurance and we have been able to afford to eat.)

Overall, we have lost $3,590 in income and $2,800 in various medical bills JUST relating to the mental health emergency due to the improper medication, $500 in job prep (background check, clothing, supplies, etc), and at least $1,000 on funtioning in our home while cabinets are pulling away from walls, floors look like the surface of an unhappy lake, and drywall is missing from walls and ceilings in multiple places.

This summer cost us $8,000 in emergency costs that we simply weren't prepared for (after clearing close to $5,000 in emergency issues between June 2022 and June 2023- not because we are irresponsible, we just simply haven't had time to recover since our last round of unexpected major expenses).

All received donations will be going toward paying off the credit card where most of our expenses have been put while we were waiting for short-term disability to hit. If we see anything over that amount of $8,000, it will go toward anything insurance doesn't cover of our renovation after the flooding so it can be done well (they want to cover the kind of cheap paint that won't do the job in just one coat and also only cover one coat of it, for example- the fight to get things covered properly is still ongoing).

Times are hard for everyone, I understand. I try to give whenever I can, and if I don't have cash I offer rides, childcare, meals, labor...whatever I can. Outside of pure financial assistance, though, we have no pressing needs. It's purely needing to pay off debts and bills until the house is done, Nathan's meds are balanced, and our income matches what it is typically supposed to be.