My Explaination - Letter of Explanation

Dear Bank:

Thank you for taking the time to read this letter of explanation.

I never thought that I would have to relate the following events to you or anyone else; I never saw this coming and quite frankly I thought that I was better prepared for these types of life events.

In December of 2004 my wife and I were transferred to Jacksonville, Fl by the Orthotic and Prosthetic Company (Hanger O&P) that I had been employed by in Fort Walton, Fl. We had just settled into our home of four months when I ruptured my right Bicep Tendon and had to have extensive surgical repair and rehabilitation. Even though I had a good insurance plan and short term disability this all fell apart when the company informed me that due to my injuries I was no longer capable of fulfilling my work contract as a licensed provider and that I was being released from employment. (no part time spots)

Fortunately when we sold our home in Fort Walton Bch we had made a little money and with unemployment insurance I should have been able to make ends meet till I could find another employer. I did not realize that Jacksonville was a "family" town in the circles of Orthotics and Prosthetics companies and that it would be so difficult to get employment. So I decided to take the opportunity to advance my clinical education while at the same time we put our house on the market to sell, all in an attempt to reduce our debt load.

So for the rest of 2005 I attended FCCJ in the Nursing program and worked part time for a DME company, Home Medical Supply. We thought we were on the way solid ground when we sold our home and were able to move into the home we now reside at. When my education was complete I would get a job in orthopedic nursing and we would get back to life.

In March of 2006 I was diagnosed with terminal colon cancer and informed that I had little time left to live much less finish school. So I kept the part time job with Home Medical Supply and withdrew from the Nursing program for obvious reasons. Shortly after my diagnosis I was faced by several options with regard to my care and surgical options, most predicated on my insurance policy. I was told that my cancer was very involved and that it would require several surgeries and months of down time to recover, and that through the process I would have to have a colostomy which would prevent me from being able to work or lift any type of weight. It was indicated that these procedures would take 16 to 24 months. These were the Doctors words to me that were "in network" through the HMO that we had at that time.

This just didn't seem like an acceptable option so in the face of all reason my wife and I started doing some research in an attempt to find a better out come. At the same time we started going out side the "network" of our HMO and having to pay for second and third opinions. All the while being told that the cancer was growing rapidly and also being told how expensive all this was going to be. So from March 2006 to August of 2006 we fought like crazy people to find an option to save my life. In August we got a break when we meet Dr. Jack Crump, (not in Network) a physician here in Jacksonville that had been dealing with my type of cancer using minimally invasive procedures for several years with very good out come. Great, so we set a surgery date August 10th. Did I mention that up till this point we had been cutting back on every living expense and selling anything we had of value, like boats, stocks and bonds, vacation property, etc? We had also managed to maintain all of our obligations with out falling behind. We did call and get an extension for the month that I was in the hospital in August of 2006 for our car notes from American Honda. SunTrust our mortgage holder had no such options and told us that until we were 90 days behind that they would not even discuss doing anything to help.

And that is where our financial trouble really starts, in explaining to several companies and credit card carriers what was going on with my employment and health care we opened a can of worms. The main problem came from Credit Card Companies , when they found out that I had changed employment and that my income had been reduced they explained that the low interest rates that we had on our cards were due to the excellent debt to income ratios that we had before all of this medical nonsense started. And that regardless of the fact that we had been making the payments on time, they were going to have to either ask for payment in full or raise or interest rates to the default rates. We could not pay them off so they raised the rates, which raised the monthly payments which we had been squeaking by at paying and that put us into a position that we started to be late on other bills in an attempt