If you’ve ever thought “I’d like to donate 5 bucks to a charity. but which one?” – may I suggest one that matters to my family?
Go to this link: https://11354.thankyou4caring.org/SHMC_Main_Donate and select the Designation: “Patient Family Guest House.” Maybe put in a comment like “This is for someone who really appreciated the CMN/Lions Family Guest House while their kid was in the NICU at Sacred Heart in Eugene.”
I hope to write up our experience someday in gory upsetting detail, but for now you can watch the video on this website for some idea of what we went through: http://www.peacehealth.org/shared-pages/Pages/_childrens-miracle-network-Default.aspx
It seems to cover the same locations and machines and heart breaking Doctor crap.
The relevant bit here is that after a tough couple months (25 days of which was spent in a hospital hoping the bleeding wouldn’t kill my wife, because the baby wasn’t ready), our baby was cut out 3 months before it’s due date, and we suddenly found ourselves on the street with a prescription for pain meds. Being offered a free room at this nearby safe house was the first good news we’d had in a while. We lived there for 3 months, and it’s hard to convey what a god send it was.
Anything you can do that helps keep this place furnished and available is important. I don’t think you can really appreciate what a miracle it is until you go through some hell, but this place was probably the most pure force for good that I’ve ever encountered. It supports several families at once (for people escaping abuse, or dealing with a dying loved one, as well as NICU baby families). And… again i don’t know how to explain how important it was to have a quiet private space with a door we could lock, and other families we could talk to, and ducks in a river outside, and free laundry and food and books and tv. I hesitate to say “we couldn’t have made it through the ordeal without it,” because we’re pretty tough. but I’m glad we didn’t have to sink that low. This place was like finding a raft of gold that makes you feel human again, while everything else around you is trying to drag you down and drown you in a rushing river of shit.
Anyway. If you do ever end up donating anything, please let me know! It’ll make me feel like I was a little bit less of a leech off of these genuinely gracious human beings who are doing something genuinely good.