Million-Dollar Baby

The first bill for Nikolina has arrived. Definitely, it is only the first since she is still in the hospital following the surgery to put her spine back where it belongs. But the first bill is enough to know that these things are out of our hands. Shane and Lemony now have a million-dollar baby. To be precise, the bill was for $1.3 million.

So, what does one do? Laugh and leave the payment of the vast majority to the insurance company (which may have a cap of $1 million in a lifetime). Then, Shane and Lemony will have to turn the rest over to God. Of course, we will help. We did so unintentionally when Nathaniel had his kidney surgery years ago. The hospital grabbed $14K that I had had Shane put into his account so that we would have moving expenses taken care of upon our return from Jordan. Well, the bottom line is that the hospital got the money I needed for moving, and I ended up with alternatives to a planned, normal move, including living with Shane, Lemony, and Nathaniel until I had earned enough money from my new job to pay all the rent, deposits, and the like while Donnie remained "stuck" in Jordan for six months. ("Stuck" is the wrong word because Jordan is a great place to live, as well as relatively inexpensive, and Donnie was able to maintain a part-time job for four of the six months.) Once back in the USA, we lived without furnishings for a while. No big deal. I had a table and an air mattress. My computer was a laptop, and we had a carpeted floor. So, nothing more was really needed. With time, everything got replaced or moved or turned around, and now we can help Shane and Lemony (and our other kids) a lot more than back in 2006 when we first moved back to the USA and its capitalistic economy, which can sometimes bring people to their knees. (Maybe that's not such a bad thing, either.)

At least, the bill does not have to be paid today, which, considering the $4K Shane needs to fix his car which has broken down just at the wrong time (not sure, though, that there is ever a right time, and certainly my family, like most people, have been through worse days) and the current negative balance in my checking account (see my post on Justice or Mercy, as well as the comments to the post), is simply a laughable thought.

God will provide. We just have to wait - and so will Stanford. Been there, done that, as they say, with our other handicapped kids. It does have the effect of keeping one humble. The only thing one has to show off for one's hard-work-produced-income is that one's kids are alive. Come to think of, I cannot think of anything better to show off. Can you?