I am a different kind of 99%-er.  If it weren’t for my premature birth I would be Occupying too. But I was not as lucky as most preemies. I was born 3 months early weighing 1 pound 9 ounces. Preemies usually pass away within the first 2 weeks, but not I! I stayed strong for my mommy and daddy, as they had to be strong for me. My mommy was medically discharged from the Army so she used the GI Bill to get her nursing degree. Her only income was her monthly housing allowance. Once I was born mommy had to put school on hold. I was in the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit attached to a ventilator and numerous other machines. Mommy held my hand and sung with me. My daddy is a very special man. He left his job to go work for a company that offered better insurance. The drawback was the hours he would have to work to provide for us. We would hang out together at the hospital until he left for work and then he would come back up for bath time, and occasionally we even got sleep overs.  It was great!

My mommy and daddy don’t like handouts, but we preemies automatically receive Medicaid as a secondary insurance. Since daddy didn’t get his new job until after I was born no one knew who would be picking up the enormous bill. Mommy and daddy were told quiet often that it could be them. It began to eat at them. You could read it in their faces.  They struggled to spend all their time with me, but “time is money”. It took money to put gas in the car, food on the table, keep bills out of the red. It drained my mommy and daddy.

I passed away after a battle with pneumonia on September 20, 2011.

They did everything they could to give me a beautiful spot on this earth, but they both had to turn to their parents and ask for money to bury me. They are only one paycheck away from getting my headstone ordered! (I would like to thank the ladies at memorials.com that have been helping us, you ladies are great.) This is not what my mommy and daddy thought becoming a parent would be like, but they are lucky. Today they found out that Medicare has covered all my hospital expenses! Today we found out, that when utilized appropriately, government programs work. We are lucky Medicare wasn’t abolished before I was born or my parents would have their last memory of me be a hospital bill. Mommy still can’t find a job and daddy’s income doesn’t cover everything, but they are strong and they will make it.

WE ARE THE 99%.