A debt forgiven out of the blue.
At first, Sara Cook thought the letter had to be a scam, or some kind of cruel joke.
“We are pleased to inform you that you no longer owe the balance on the debt referenced above,” it read. “Our forgiveness of the amount you owe is a no-strings-attached gift.”
Eight back surgeries and more than two dozen hospital visits in the span of three years had saddled the 43-year-old with stacks of medical bills that she struggled to pay each month. She had been working as a nurse when she first sought treatment for a herniated disc, but that was before the infection that turned into meningitis and left her with unpredictable seizures, unable to drive or walk without a cane.
By August, when the letter arrived, two years had passed since Cook last received a paycheck. The slim yellow envelope had been mailed to her old house, the one where she had lived before it became impossible to pay the rent.
Effectively homeless, she had been relying on the grace of family friends who let her stay with them for free. When she wasn’t sitting in a doctor’s waiting room...READ MORE
