Lone Star Bowhunters Association - Sick Couple Left to Eat Dog Food

This story really touched me. How many of us have a couple of extra packages in the freezer or don't take the time to clean one pig left in the field? It could really make a difference. I am planning on finding out how I can donate some meat to this family. Very sad!

There is a video in the link, please take time to watch.

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SICK COUPLE LEFT TO EAT DOG FOOD

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Sick Couple Left to Eat Dog Food
Updated: Friday, 09 Apr 2010, 10:03 PM CDT
Published : Friday, 09 Apr 2010, 10:03 PM CDT

NED HIBBERD
Reporter
PORTER, Texas - Many families deal with serious illness, poverty, and even homelessness. But Glenn and Jennifer Abissi are coping with all three ... simultaneously.

As a measure of their desperation, consider what’s bubbling on their stove: dog food.

Jennifer ladles it out of the can and onto the pan.

There’s a trick to cooking it properly, she says. Ketchup helps. But the real secret is this: you have to boil off as much of the juice as possible.

“I think that's about as dry as it's going to get,” she says, almost to herself, while stirring the meal with a wooden spoon.

This batch isn’t for Jen. It’s for her husband of 37-years, Glenn, who is diabetic.

“Actually, that one's pretty good,” he exclaims, eating a spoonful.

The couple lives in a rented mobile home in a Porter trailer park.

Here, the passage of time is marked by the electronic breathing of an oxygen machine.

“There's nothing left, absolutely nothing left,” mutters Glenn, who suffers from heart disease and high blood pressure.

He qualifies for Medicare but Jennifer does not.

She was recently diagnosed with a nodule in her lung, thought to be small-cell carcinoma.

“We believe God is going to heal her,” says Glenn. “Well, I sure hope so.”

They owe almost $5000 in back rent and they will probably be evicted next week.

“Right now I feel like I have no hope, Ned,” says Jennifer. “I have nightmares that the constables are going to come knocking on the door.”

Their only income is $1800 a month from Social Security. It’s enough to make Jennifer ineligible for coverage from the Montgomery County Hospital District.

“Every penny I get coming into this house,” says Glenn, “I spend down on medication right now, and some food. But eating has kind of become secondary.”

So the Abissis have been doing what desperate people do: begging from neighbors and churches. Seeking food from Meals on Wheels, which also supplies the dog food they share with their two dogs. Taking out loans with annual percentage rates of up to 455%, loans they probably can’t repay.

“I've pawned my electric wheelchair so I can't get around,” says Glenn as he sits in a manual wheelchair. “I can't push it because of my heart; she can't push it because of her cancer.”

“We've tried every single thing,” adds Jennifer, “and it seems that the further down you go, the more doors are closed to you.”

The couple tell FOX 26, they used to live a comfortable middle-class life.

Then he got sick, starting them on a downhill slide whose momentum is now seemingly inescapable.

“I just don't know how much more I can take,” says Jennifer.

The Abissis are unwilling to part with their dogs, which they believe can predict Glenn’s heart attacks. That means a homeless shelter is probably out of the question.

They predict they will end up sleeping in their 1987 Lincoln Town Car.