COLUMBUS, Ohio — For many families, 2020 has been especially tough.
“It started with me getting put on furlough at work, we were doing 5 days on 10 days off,” Robert McNabb said.
McNabb is an X-Ray technician at Nationwide Children’s Hospital. He and Heather McKelvey have three kids together. Catherine is 4 years old, William is 2 and Charlotte is 8 weeks old.
McKelvey is a stay-at-home mom and a full-time student at The Ohio State University. She said she is majoring in pharmaceutical sciences then plans on going to pharmacy school.
Ever since McNabb was furloughed, they said they have had a busy schedule and a mixture of good and bad challenges along the way.
“As my furlough ended, Charlotte was born,” McNabb said.
After losing days of work because of his furlough, he took time off to help McKelvey with the baby and enjoy time together.
Then after that, they got the heartbreaking news that Catherine had cancer and he then had to take more time off of work.
Catherine was diagnosed with Pre-B Acute Lymphoblastic Leukemia.
The parents said Catherine is now considered to be in remission but is going through a lot physically and mentally.
“She is on treatments she started treatments May 21, she is on weekly chemo she goes every Thursday for chemotherapy, she hasn’t really been doing very well she’s in a lot of pain, she’s struggling to walk on her own,” McKelvey said.
She said Catherine will continue treatments and chemotherapy for the next two to three years.
They said for them, it’s been one thing after another, like paying medical bills on only one income.
“Being on one income we need every little penny that we can get, so my pay has not only been cut significantly for the past two months but I think the past almost two weeks I didn’t get any pay at all,” McNabb said.
He said he used a lot of his PTO time, he used the COVID-19 pay he received and was off for about a total of two months.
Holly Tong’s 10-year-old daughter, Nadia, has Crohn’s Disease.
She said the bills are a concern for her and her husband even without having to go through the furlough process like many other families have had to. She said they have been fortunate in that sense.
“The medical bills are never-ending and always a concern,” Tong said.
Nadia gets infusions six to seven weeks at Nationwide Children’s Hospital and she said there’s an added risk when having an illness in the family and having to go in and out of a hospital right now.
“This medication does weaken her immune system pretty significantly so we have to always take extra precautions so for us during a pandemic we’re just practicing what we’re already pretty good at; for someone with a compromised immune system if they contract one of these COVID type diseases or viruses it can last double or triple the time that it might take a healthy person,” Tong said.
She said every time they go in for a treatment, she has her moments of fear.
"While we’re grateful for the treatments it’s always scary to see chemicals going into your child’s body and what those side effects down the road could be,” Tong said.
For other families going through similar situations, having to worry about a health situation and the financial concerns that may come with it, these two families said they understand the mental strain.
“It is definitely difficult when it comes to you know our mental well-being, our emotions and everything; you know it’s a one day at a time thing one hour at a time thing every day could be different you never know what could happen,” McKelvey said.
McKelvey and McNabb said the community has really stepped up to help them and their daughter battling cancer.
“Thankfully we’ve had a lot of help from the community, Dublin schools have stepped up a lot of our social media friends have donated, even the radiology department both children’s and Dublin Methodist have stepped up and helped us out immensely,” McNabb said.
McKelvey said they’ve also had a lot of help from local foundations. They’ve created a GoFundMe account and have had an outpour of support.
As the year goes on, the families we spoke to on Tuesday want to encourage others to stay patient and strong.
“Certainty during this time, health is everything and if we are healthy, we can figure the rest out so that’s what we try to think through every day we have a sign near our back door that says we do hard things you know we take on difficult challenges this is the challenge that we have been dealt in life and will hit it head-on and do the best that we can and know that each day we wake up healthy we’re grateful,” Tong said.
Both families also said they are grateful for the incredible staff at Nationwide Children’s Hospital and other medical facilities that they have been to who have shown immense support and help.
We reached to Nationwide Children’s Hospital who said the following:
“Many health systems across the country have had to make difficult decisions about staffing as non-urgent procedures and office visits were put on hold due to COVID-19. We are not releasing specific number of furloughed work hours as they were quite fluid, but we were able to offer many staff leave-pay, return to work bonuses and continued health care coverage depending their employment status. We are now seeing staffing begin to return to traditional levels as we have developed policies and procedures to help keep our staff and the families we serve safe as we return to full operations.”