Today I discovered that a fundraising organization that helped Noah earlier this year, spent Noah's fundrasing money. I don't know the exact total since there were 3 days of fundraising involved and an online auction. My guess is the total was around somewhere around $3,000. The organizer of the fundraiser indicated to me today that it was taken out of her account due to child support issues and it was gone. I had my suspicions for a while that the money was not there as I asked for therapy equipment to be purchased with unresponsive replies. While she made the offer to send me payments weekly, until Noah's donations were re-paid, I know in my heart I'll never see that money reimbursed. I've contacted the organizations directors, and I'm not sure they really know what to do about the situation either and have simply encouraged me to pursue "real world avenues" regarding the situation. Which to me means exploring legal action as a remedy. And I'm thinking that should not have to be my responsibility to right every wrong. So God, I look up and say what is the lesson now. What exactly are you trying to teach me. What is the message that I am not hearing? Because I am tired and worn out. And if you think you're using me as a tool for others to learn from... well God I'm not sure anyone is listening.
Noah's service dog situation is also less than ideal. Samson left home earlier this week to be sent to Utah to finish both his puppy training and his skills training. Our assumption was he was going to a person skilled in training service dogs, but so far it seems he's just been sent from one home to another and is going to a person that has no experience in training service dogs, but that will simply be followed by a trainer. And I'm feeling like this isn't at all what we signed up for either. I had thought we'd be getting a highly trained service dog, and instead it feels like we're destined for a house pet. And I sit here extremely troubled as I continue to hear about multiple clients seeking and winning judgments against the very same agency that Samson is from.
And the thing is I'm doing my research. I'm doing my best to explore valid organizations and foundations to deal with. I'm not making any decisions quickly or in haste. Yet, somehow I wind up realizing that I'm dealing with nothing but wolves in sheep's clothing. I feel like I have sucker written all over my forehead. In my quest to search out all the help I can provide Noah with and avenues to make his life better - I seem to be drawing all the negative people to me - like a heat sinking missile. If I do find red flag I do question it, but seem to buy into everyone's explanation which is just a way of pulling wool over my eyes. Maybe my radar is off when it comes to judgment in people's character. Or am I just so desperate for help that I'm easy pray? I want to believe the world cares about Noah. I want to believe that no one would want to cause pain or hurt to him or his family. But that is not the case. The world is not good and pure. It feels like the statistics are that out of 10 people only 2 have good intentions and the other 8 well watch out they'll give your life a wild ride.
By the end of all this I'll be able to write a book titled: How Not to be Hoodwinked When You're a Special Needs Parent. But for right now I feel like I want to bury my head in sand and have a big cry.
Love,
Noah's Miracle by Stacy Warden is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License.