I guess the time has finally come to suck it up and swallow my pride and ask for help. As a shelter operator and home childcare operator and mother of teenagers, up till last month I was able to handle the day to day grind of making end meet. Last month one of the moms whose 2 children I cared for was fired with no notice, and another 1 of my moms quit with no notice. I have a contract regarding tremination of my services but these are both single moms and having been there, you cannot get blood from a turnip. I do not want to make their lives any more difficult. Companions Inc., has a program to help out pet owners who cannot afford necessary treatment but when my vet applied to the program on my behalf, he was told that they do not include shelters, just private pet owners.(sigh) Any way, over the last 2 months My income has been cut by over 30%. I have children coming in but not until June. Meanwhile, Lucky's medical bill last month was almost 800.00 to take care of a urinary blockage, infection, prostate abcess and then finally adrenal surgery to remove the offending gland. 3 weeks post op he is doing great and growing hair. All would have been fine except on the morning of Mothers Day as I was preparing to go to another private animal rescue to help out for a few hours I noticed that Pepper was trying to pee but nothing was happening. I watched him for about 30 minutes and called the vet. He did not have a tube small enough to cath him so he sedated him over night and pulled urine out with a syringe. He will be over at Aurora animal Clinic this morning for them to cath him and we will be sending off a blood sample to U of T for the adrenal panel. Needless to say to those of you that go through this every month, I cant make anything balance this month. I have cut all that I can think of, even gas expenses. It will take months to recover from this once I have a full crew of kids back, but I am so far behind on my utilities and other bills because of the excessive bills last month. I hate asking for help but stress levels are rising and my utilitie companies are not very sympathetic with my reasoning as to why I am behind again. Any help would be greatly appreciated and prayers of support and guidance if you are so inclined. This month I am over my head and drowning fast. I keep telling myseld that God will not give me more than I can handle but my goodness, I wish He did not have so much faith in my abilities! TTFN, Diana and The Ferret farm [Posted in FML issue 2674]