Peggy's call for help

Hello

I am a 67 year old woman; I have a hard working ethic, have worked all my life for my family and my students and friends. I have been a registered nurse and a beloved teacher at secondary school level. I am a giving person, and have helped many others.

1 year ago I had a fall which resulted in a hip injury and I already had a chronic back injury from a fall in 2006 crossing a river. Since my hip injury fall I have also had 2 acute admissions to Waikato hospital with bowel obstructions. There is no surgical solution.

So all of this has resulted in my having to resign from my teaching job and that in turn has meant I will have to sell my small house in Raglan. I have worked very hard to develop this cottage and garden as there was nothing here when I arrived. It feels like my home.

It saddens me that this has to happen. I suffer intense pain each day and have to walk with a stick and cannot manage everyday tasks often like cooking dinner, or taking out the trash. My condition has me disabled, and I struggle.

I have had a tragic life prior to this as my lovely husband suffered and died of ALS motor neurons disease when he was only aged 38, a horrific muscle wasting illness. This meant I had to look after the farm we were working on as share milkers and sell everything including the cows and calves. Then move to a little house in Hamilton where worked very hard, as a nurse and solo mum, to raise my two sons and educate them to adulthood.

So my life has always had some difficulty but these last recent events have been a terrible trial as I want to stay in this little cottage and continue to recover and heal here.

I am writing to ‘Give a little’ to see if people can see it in their hearts to give some money to allow me to keep my little house and continue to live here, or if I cannot raise enough money, to at least have the finances to keep living and not lose everything I have worked for.

I have given a lot to my students at Auckland Girls Grammar, Fraser High school and Hamilton Girls High School and also to the Raglan community as I am an artist and have painted art works to help save the walk bridge and to raise money for other ventures in the past. I have not painted now for a year due to my disability but hope in the future to be able to do that again if the people reading this will be generous and donate something towards my struggle right now.

I realize that I am an ordinary person who has had some grief and tragedy in my life but if I lose my home, I lose everything I have worked for over the last 50 years.

Thank you

Peggy Lee