Eric Bolding

Okay. so I was scrolling free stuff on the H-town craigslist and i find this add: Free Goats!

These people are selling their farm and moving, but giving away 75 goats! Might have other stuff for Permie Peeps in the area as well!

Posted 16 hours ago today (5/22)

Thank you for the information and advice, although a little disheartening. We are grateful for the response though. We're not entirely sure what comes after chemotherapy as we were just told we were starting with chemo because he is too young for radiation. We hate the idea of radiation though and are hoping there will be another option available when the time comes. We also do still hope that we can find a community before then, although we can definitely see why people would be apprehensive about having our family stay with them.

As far as his current doctors and team, we absolutely love them. No doubt about it! But, we find it increasingly harder to get by the way things are going and the advice given to us is to stay if we can, but if we would get more support and help somewhere else, we should go there. His tumor is an extremely slow growing glioma that has already shrunk apx 20% with chemo and what we're doing here at home. We believe living in a community would provide great benefits as we would be more active for sure, eating healthier, and living a life with purpose.

Currently, we are both working remotely making just enough to pay bills and get by, although there are days we eat once or twice to make sure the kiddos always have food. Eric was working out of the house as a chef, until it became increasingly difficult to get Landon to his appointments, work with him on PT, OT, and ST, and take care of three other children and a house. His boss actually told him that no one had any sympathy left for us and he needed to just be at work doing his job. He felt he had to choose between his job and his family after several months of this.

We feel stuck a lot. His family is at least three hours away, some of them even more. I was in foster care, and so do not have much of a relationship with my family. I think that is what we're looking for. We want a community. We want a family. We have always been extremely helpful and have given our last dollar to others, sheltered people when they had nowhere to go, and just generally try to do what we can to make other people's lives better if we can. And we're tired of living in an environment where instead of it just being a good thing that we are helping our fellow man, we are left feeling guilty and wondering whether or not our helping someone else is going to make it harder for our children or our family as a whole. We're tired of feeling frustrated and scared that our family is not going to make it through this intact.

We have been through entirely too much for one family and we just want what's best for our children. If the best thing is truly to just scrape by financially and have no support system so that our son stays with his doctors and won't have his health compromised further, then that is what we will do. If we can make this work though... even if we're all squished into a 10'X10' space... even if we have to work for hours every day... even if we had to leave the state! If we can make it work... It would be worth it. To feel like we belong.

We are doing our research and we have already learned quite a bit and can't wait to learn more! We're currently discussing what type of home we would like to build initially and what our "dream home" might look like. We're also looking into different methods for water collection, keeping warm, keeping cool, and other basic needs. We are quite amazed at just how many ways there seem to be to handle all of those things!

If you have any other suggestions for videos, books, etc please feel free to let us know! And if anyone would be willing to take on a family with such a complicated situation, even if it might be a ways down the road, let us know too! The kids are extremely excited, as they've been learning right along with us and they keep trying to figure out where we might be going.

So, I'm not entirely sure how to start this... best to just jump in I suppose.

We are a family of six (which you probably already guessed) consisting of a 27 year old mom, a 30 year old dad and four awesome kiddos- ages 9, 7, 6, and 3. We began looking into the idea of living in an intentional community a couple months ago, but we have some questions and concerns. Here's to hoping some of you awesome people have the answers!

Our situation is a little complicated, as our six year old son was diagnosed with brain cancer on September 1, 2015 and he is still receiving chemotherapy for at least another ten months. We are wondering if living in a community is a viable option for our family. We love the idea of being a part of something bigger than ourselves and the sense of family, accomplishment, and purpose that seems to come from leaving behind the "normal" way of living. We've started trying to live a little simpler, although we aren't exactly wealthy so we live pretty simply anyway. We've started gardening and have all fell in love with it, including Landon (our six year old) who is currently growing cayenne peppers.

We don't have extensive experience with gardening, building, etc, but we are hard-working, willing to learn, and love helping people. We both are currently doing freelance work online and would love to find a place where this would still be possible, even if limited. Eric also brings 10+ years of culinary experience with him, as well as some knowledge of metal working and medicine (his family is almost entirely in the medical profession.) Most of my professional experience is in lead generation, internet research, and data entry but I also bring nine years of being a mom to the table! If there are any communities that would like to accept families, but are lacking designated child care for when parents are required to help around the community, I could help!

We are hoping to find a community within reasonable distance to a hospital in case Landon needs to be admitted or just observed and would of course need to continue his required chemo treatments. His insurance through SSI is accepted nationwide, so that is a plus! A community in Texas or close by would be ideal so that we don't have to travel too far, but so long as Landon can get to a doctor when he needs to we don't really mind where!

Is this possible? Are there certain questions we would want to ask communities? How would we explain this appropriately to doctors and anyone else who may ask? Would we have to worry about living in a community without running water? Can a person with a compromised immune system thrive in an environment such as this, where there are less harmful chemicals and healthier habits? Or is there more of a risk of him getting sick if not in a more controlled environment? His last two X-Rays have shown death of the tumor, as well as overall shrinkage of about 20% in the last eight months. His progress is astounding and we are hoping this is an option for our family, but we wanted to get some advice and opinions from others currently living in communities before we even discussed the option with doctors, family, etc.

Thank you!

*Edit: Previously said our five year old and our six year old... Whoops! Landon is turning six in four days
*Edit 2: Just realized Eric created this account under his name, so it probably looks weird that I said Eric and I! I am Jamie (although I prefer Krystine) and Eric is my husband. We have three boys- Robin, Landon, and Austin and one girl, Abigail (who currently prefers to be called "Sparkarella" for whatever reason...)