My name is Amy Carter. I am the wife of a US Marine, James Carter. We are currently stationed aboard Marine Corps Base Camp Lejeune in North Carolina. He has been transferred to another Marine Corps base that is 50 miles away. He has to drive back and forth to work at that base which will total more than 100 miles a day in driving. We have two children, Dusty (son) 16yrs old and is a special needs child. Kayla (daughter) 13yrs old but will be 14 Nov 24. Dusty was born with multiple medical issues. Seizures, microcephaly, an immune system disorder (inability to produce one of the two immune system antibodies). In 60 yrs of research at Duke they had never seen anyone that was not able to produce that certain antibody. So they did not know what to tell me. He gets sick pretty easy. He has had meningitis once and strep throat probably 40 times in his lifetime. When we get the cold it is like the flu to him. Which really scares me because of this whole swine flu/h1n1 virus? He will be one of the 1st recipients of the swine flu vaccine when it is delivered to the Naval hospital on base. Over the summer he somehow got salmonella. When he did he started having seizures on Thurs/Fri and did not stop till Tuesday. One of the seizures hit the part of the brain that regulates body temps. His went down too low and the ICU team acted quickly. While there they did a lot of tests on him. On a MRI they found that the back of his brain was compressed against his brain stem. They need to fix that by way of brain surgery at Duke University in Durham NC. Duke is over 3 hours away. They also think he may have MS. I also have multiple medical issues. I have had 17 surgeries since 1992. I broke my spine in 2005. That was due to a severe case of degenerative disc disease that I was diagnosed with. In 1999, at the age of 26, I had the spine of an 80yr old woman. When I broke it they had to perform surgery in order to fix it. Otherwise I would have paralyzed myself very easily. I even surprised them by not having more issues when I broke it. I have had 7 mini-strokes; heart stopped 5 times, cancer 3 times, developing diabetes 2 yrs ago and more. On Sept 1 2009, our wedding anniversary, I was told by my doctor that I may have cancer again. She was convinced I do have it. She is currently running tests on me for more information. Myself and my son already go to numerous doctors appts each month and now to ad the new issues we will be going even more. Our problem is that we currently have one running vehicle that is a SUV. My husband has a 91 Honda CBR 600 F3 motorcycle and a 93 Nissan 240. But they are not running. He pretty much knows the problems on the motorcycle and the car needs a motor. He has been trying to work on the motorcycle but because of financial issues he has not been able to finish it. We do not have many choices. He has to have to have something to drive to and from the other base where he is working. Without one of the other modes of transportation fixed he has have to drive our only vehicle. That is a problem because we have a lot of medical appts to go to, surgeries, tests and so on because of our medical issues. With him going back and forth with the SUV the gas that will be needed is not in our budget. That and all the appts. We have been spending over $400 a month just on gas. My husband and I both have been a victim of identity theft. As a result, our auto insurance sky rocketed. It went from about $75 a month to over $400 a month. We have been trying to fix that issue but ran into a road block. We have even got the citations in question fingerprinted. They found no fingerprints at all. That did not help. Now the courts in Florida say my husband must first pay a fee for a case to be opened in court. Then try to prove to a judge that the tickets are not his. The problem is that the person that he has mixed up with has the exact same name as my husband. Same birthday but exactly 20yrs apart. Their drivers license number both start with the same 6 letters/numbers. So we have to somehow prove that that is not him on the tickets. So you see any extra expense is just not in our budget. We need help getting either his motorcycle or car fixed for several reasons. We cannot afford for him to drive the SUV to work for several reasons. We cannot afford to get either one of them fixed them right not nor can we afford not to fix either one right now. I am writing you to ask for help. We were even unable to afford to get our children their clothes, shoes, supplies and even eyeglasses for school this year. We really need some type of help with this. I really appreciate you taking time out of your busy day to read my letter. I really hope that someone is able to and willing to help us. Help a special needs family get to their medical appointments for thier chronic medical conditions. View their cause and donate at www.microgiving.com/profile/carterfamily Please post this link on blogs, forums etc...