First off, I just wanted to say a huge THANK YOU to everyone who donated to our campaign. I feel very humbled by the fact that we were able to raise $5450, which had a massive impact on our financial situation.
The last few months have been busy with our noses to the grindstone. We were able to pay off Terra's van as planned, and made small strides despite some dental needs that came up. But, that all changes with the campaign :)
Now for the fun bits:
We were able to pay off three major medical debts and a few minor bills. In all, these bills represent $450/month of expense that is GONE. This gives us a HUGE amount of breathing room, and allowed me to pull Terra's check out of the budget so that it is finally extra money. This extra can go for extra snowball money or fun money without impacting the established get-out-of debt plan -- which makes me very happy :). Words cannot describe the relief I'm feeling at this point.
However, this isn't the best part. I recently discovered that Aetna is reprocessing all of our Vivaglobin claims as a pharmacy benefit instead of a major medical benefit. Translation? That means that instead of each dose costing $800 per kid per month (then subject to deductibles and 80/20), each dose is $65 flat. $65!! Since Aetna's pharmacy was one of the three major debts we paid off with the campaign, we will be getting approximately $1200-$1500 back from Aetna. THIS IS HUGE :)
I'll use this to pay off the remaining balances on some of the smaller bills and use the rest to continue walking up our debt snowball. Sure, our deductible will be replaced, but we are in a pretty good place now and that's ok :).
THANK YOU again to everyone who has donated and who has been praying for our family. You can still donate at From The Heart by specifying our family in the notes, OR you could go see what other great families are being sponsored and help meet their needs :).