Because some things now need to be said.
I am going to now address this issue myself.
I have seen many hurtful words flung from blogger to blogger over the whole "Donate to Renee" business. So I am going to clear some things up.
Wednesday I got a text from Ange, wondering if I had seen Renee's blog. No I had not. I was not even aware that she had a blog! Ange sent me the link asked me to look it over and let her know what I thought. After reading the majority of it I noticed that certain things didn't make sense.
1. We had been told that they lost their home due to her husband's cancer and were forced to live in an RV where they were now going to have to battle the cold winter. According to Renee's blog however, they apparently chose, a few years ago, to simplify their life style and get rid of their home and live in an RV. To each his own, as you all know I tend to be judgement free on most people's decisions especially when it doesn't effect me. But...This was just different than what we had been told.
2. We had been told her husband could not work due to the cancer. On her blog, Renee states that after much research they decided to treat her husband's cancer holistically with herbs instead of the traditional chemo. Again to each his own. I have never had cancer, so I don't know what I would choose if I was in his situation. But I do know that going the herbal route is very expensive out of pocket. Insurance will not cover it. And on her blog Renee says that Had her husband gone the Chemo treatments the doctor's estimated that he would have been back to work by October. Which is now. Also different than what we had been told.
3. We were told they had no electricity, had no money, could not afford the basics and had to home school their children because of the cancer. Several different things on their blog suggest that, while they are broke, things are not too the extreme that we had been led to believe. (Such as Renee has a dot com to pay for her photography website. I know I can't afford that.)
Ashlee, Ange and I puzzled over these things and decided to bring them to the attention of another blogger, who I will not name unless she so chooses. She also read over the blog and thought those same things did not add up. I had also emailed Gucci who was kind enough to email me back the facts of Renee and her family's situation as she knew it. Feeling that maybe Gucci did not have all the facts one of us chose to call her and let her know our concerns.
I'll pause here for a moment...At this time the Boobs for Bucks post had already gone live on Gucci's blog. Over a thousand dollars had been raised through Gucci's paypal act that she had set up. If someone who did not care about Gucci and everyone else who had made an effort for Renee and her family, thought that things were not adding up and decided to do something about it, Gucci could have been in a lot of legal trouble! Certain people have assumed that the ones who brought it to Gucci's attention are just malicious jerks with nothing better to do. And yet, we were some of the main ones campaigning to raise money along side Gucci. Ashlee and Ange were hosting giveaways with their own items and paying for the shipping on those as well! (Something that both of them were not really financially able to do.) The rest of us had done posts and had volunteered for Boobs for Bucks. We were actively trying to help this family, who, despite all that wasn't true, is still going through a very hard time.
After one of us called Gucci and spoke to her, she took down her posts. She also emailed us and said she was going to do her own research on the matter, and also read Renee's blog. I have not spoken to her since then so I do not know if she came to the conclusion the rest of us had.
Since it has already been said by someone else I will state that Gucci did call her lawyer. But I will clarify that by stating She did it to see what legal ramifications she could be dealing with. She also returned the money.
All of you who have been reading my blog for awhile know that cancer is a disease that has affected me personally. I not only have cancer cells growing in my cervix, but I lost my dearest and closest friend last year to breast cancer. I was with her through the chemo and radiation and while she was in the hospital in a coma. And I was with her up until she died. I would do anything to help someone battling cancer.
That being said, no one should have to fib details to make their bad situation sound worse. I am not sure if that is what happened here. I do have a copy of the email that was originally sent around asking for every one's support and some of those facts stated are not completely true, which I find odd since the person who wrote that email is supposedly a close friend to Renee.
I would like to think that if I was in Renee's shoes, had friends going to such great lengths to help me, I would have done all I could to correct something they were saying if it was incorrect. Renee feels like that's what she did and I would not assume to call her a liar.
As I have stated before, so many reached out to help and that more than anything is what we should be focusing on. We've been accused of only doing this to gain followers when the truth is we used our status as bloggers to beg for help. Everyone is hurting right now. I don't know a single person who has recovered from the economy taking a dive. We lost everything. We went from living in a beautiful house, with a secure job, getting ready to buy our first home to nothing. Being on state aid. Moving 3 hours away from our home to live in a one room apt. My husband worked 50 hours a week and for 3 months he made no money. We lived on food stamps and state aid. And we were not the only ones. 2 years later and we feel like we are still recovering. I know that Ange, Ashlee and everyone else that donated had to cut into Food money, rent money, electricity bill money just to help out..Only to find out that we were helping people who are in the same boat as us.
Had the actual facts been put before us, I know we still would have done what we could to help. It might not have been to the same extent, but we still would have tried. We still would have kept them in our thoughts and prayers.
No one wanted to take away from a good deed. We just wanted to know the real truth, and in all honesty all we got back from the people who should have been clarifying things from the get go, are cruel words and harshness. That doesn't seem fair. We did not yell at Gucci. We did not threaten her with legal ramifications if she kept asking for donations on this family's behalf. We simply brought her our concerns, and she made her own decisions based on what she felt.
So to Renee and Carl if you want to hate us for this, then I am sorry for you. If you honestly can't put yourselves in our shoes and see how we felt then I pity you. I sit here and I feel bad for you, for all you have gone through, and for all you have left to go through. And I hope that through this post you can see our side of the story. And where we are coming from.
If you can't, then it's your loss. If you can't....Oh well. But I have tried to explain it to you the best way possible....So from here on out you can shut up about it. Now you know what really happened so that gives you no call to keep attacking any of us. And if you do keep it up then we will use our blogger status to your disadvantage. And you will see that we are still holding ourselves together while you call us names. You will see that we haven't even begun to get pissed off or mad. We are still hoping that the good part of you, that you claim exists, will coming out and stop this nonsense. But if you don't...Then you have no idea what you will unleash.
I hope you make the right decision.
15 comments:
Thank you for this. I didn't know all of the details at all until your post. And I totally agree with your assessment of the situation 100%. :)
Mad love to Gucci and all of you girls for working so hard to help someone in need.
It's a shame things had to go down how they did.
Thanks. That cleared thing up for me as well. I'm with Miss J. Good on you for helping someone and sad that maybe it wasn't as it seemed.
Well-written and compassionate. No anger and name-calling, just your thoughts and feelings on the situation.
You did what was right and you're still doing what's right and you're handling yourself with class, girl.
Nicely said.
Gucci isn't in any trouble is she? Does she need anything?
Very well said. :)
I feel like I know all I need to know about what happened now. I hope it all blows over quickly and everyone can move on with their lives.
I thank you for at least politely posting...
after an overwhelming amount of rudeness since and no one has really spoken to me about what totally is going on. Just what I have picked up on blogs as well in comments bashing and saying they've been had or we scammed them or does my husband truly have cancer among the few I've seen.
I do see your side and I had done an email to her and was not going to publicly embarrass her by correcting her in public until she had contacted me back about the corrections needed. I should have done a follow up and didn't figured she was busy as I know I am and would be changing it. I didn't discover until yesterday afternoon it was in my draft box therefore never reaching her.
I do apologize it went the way it did. I never asked for the help we would have continued as we were going from whatever avenues we were led to but was grateful when help was coming in unexpectedly.
She moved away by the time we decided to move into our rv due to my husbands job which drastically simplified our lives rather than packing up at a moments notice typically every 3ish months but with his boss it was never known when. I thought she had been keeping up with my blog or FB or what have ya.
I am not blogging any further on the whole mess I don't need the added stress.
PS as a quick FYI you can get domain names for $7 for a year (better deals if you can pay for more years which at this time I could not) and I am using a free site for designing until things are better situated or business gets going. I will in January unless things take a turn we aren't expecting have to show some hours for state assistance to come in and starting a business counts...I have to document everything for them as to the things I do and show some proof...this was one of those "proof" things I have had to do.
Anyhow I am signing off on this mess grateful for those that have a heart and sorry for how things went wish I would have thought to check my email box as hers wasn't the only one not sent others that were as if not more important as they were for other medical related issues.
Continuation was told too long to post..I am very sorry for the loss of your friend. May she RIP and I hope that your situation health wise turns out for the better and doesn't get worse before it gets better.
Maybe it was not worded right...I didn't mean this situation was for popularity of each's blog. Just that there are a few blogs that the more people they had on their blog the better they felt about themselves. Not sure I can word it right but I certainly never meant popularity for this situation.
I realize everyone has issues therefore never willing to ask for help. I don't know what the original email said or was about. I just know the blog was started as a result.
On the #2: His herbals are being covered at $140/mo. He has been told approx a year barring nothing goes wrong. I remain optimistic and refuse to say IF nothing goes wrong because I don't want it to so therefore don't want it in my thoughts in the least. One of the first dr.s said by October only to talk to other dr.s and given different stories. the first dr. wasn't giving us all information, ignored what we felt were important questions to be answered. She tried scaring us into the treatments she wanted to do and length of time. He has been told recently he will never work again in using his CDL license. Those type of jobs will not be feasible in the future and will need to change line of work. I don't blog daily or all the time so there are gaps of time and compression of time and so yes therefore some in between times details left out...never realized before my blog was ever going to get read so much.
#3 listed here...I only recall the no running water being mentioned which is true as well as no sewer so we have to take the rv across town at a rate of $10 to dump which now that treatments have begun will be hard for my husband to do but we will manage. I also don't recall in the original blog that I was homeschooling because of this situation...she knew I homeschooled when she lived in MT. Anyhow thanks for a nicer blog than the ones I have read and the comments have not been rude on your page therefore I am willing to be nice back and explain and hopefully clear things up. The way things are snowballing yet never one word said to us I only had the rude blogs to go on. Thank you for at least leaving a link on my blog to come here and read.
um Not to comment again however I just found a blog that has Gucci's copy of that blog still on their blog. Its been nagging me on some points I keep seeing pop up that I didn't recall reading in her blog so have been searching for someone that might still have it up.
It never says on there we were w/o electricity it says the hospital is allowing us to use theirs which is true. It doesn't say we are homeschooling due to this situation just that I am a sahm that homeschools and our youngest having Autism.
"She is holding her family together, taking care of her husband, teaching her children, and trying to make a home out of a travel trailer parked in a hospital parking lot while stretching six hundred dollars a month to feed and clothe a family of five"
the ONLY part of this section that needed corrected and she didn't know which is one of the corrections in the email I tried to send out was the food we have food assistance...she states we are living on $600 not on nothing which compared to a paying job is nothing but was not her words. I am beginning to think someone(s) didn't read her blog in full or took what they wanted to see or translated leaving out some serious key points.
I know she is sickened over all this. Not because we have been able to have contact as it is advised we don't at this time, but because I know the kind of person she is personally. It is sad this situation is preventing us from being able to speak due to legal reasons and it sucks!
Ok I am done now just was something nagging at me.
This was a beautifully written post Miss C. I hope that this all blows over soon and can jut be a distant memory.
Wow thank you so much for clarifying everything and being so honest. I was out of blog land for a while, but read some of the posts concerning this family and felt compelled to make a small donation. My husband kept yelling at me saying that its silly to make a donation to someone you don't know and online things can be shady, sketchy and a scam, but I refused to listen to him. I hate that he was somewhat correct.
Thank you again for explaining everything and I hope everything works out for all parties involved.
OK so I get the original email which apparently was not sent by Renee left out some things. But I had read and posted Gucci's blog and some of the stuff was not said the way it was taken. Does that make sense??
I agree that things should have been clarified once questions were asked. I am not mad at anyone.. I just see both sides.
Truth is I would chose herbs over chemo anyday, especially since I KNOW there are herbs that CURE cancer without killing the good cells and medical community and the government block them from being advertised as such, cause they can't replicate them with chemicals. So there they lose money..
it is ironic that you can logically judge someone else's lies but do not recognize your own.
something in the bible about not taking the straw out of your brother's eye when you have a log in your own eye. hmmmm
When you come clean, we love you and want you back home, but leave the lies behind and all the unclean sexuality that you can't help but embrace.
We miss the real you under all that clutter.I miss my best friend who would make jokes with me and talk in foreign accents with her siblings and you all had me laughing so hard I would have to pull over the car to get my breathe. I miss the fun. I miss you wherever you are underneath your facade. I love you.
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