Furloughed federal employee's family battles cancer diagnosis and bills

Furloughed federal employee during Government Shutdown

Amidst a government shutdown, federal employee Mike Daugherty's family is simultaneously confronting severe medical emergencies, including a cancer diagnosis and a seizure, while relying on community aid to manage mounting bills and a broken-down vehicle

Happy sounds still come from Mike and Shayna Daugherty’s home in the middle of shutdown hardships.

Mike has worked as an accountant for the Department of Defense for the last 15 years. He was protected in the last shutdown, but not this time.

Mike Daugherty and Shayna Daugherty

Furlough hardship

What they're saying:

"My last paycheck was on October 10th, and it excluded the first few days of October because that was when the furlough started," said Mike. "It's been really difficult. I’ve had to take out some money for retirement to try to pay for it. We've also had a lot of extra costs happening here as the shutdown was happening and that's really made it even more difficult."

The day the shutdown started, the family was leaving the hospital with Garrett after an emergency tonsillectomy.

While they were headed home, a phone call from special-needs son Zach's school, told them he had a seizure and was unconscious, and an ambulance took him to a different hospital.

Zach Daugherty

"They increased his epilepsy medication, and they sent him home the same night," said Shayna.

"The next day I had to go get a biopsy because they had found a lump, and that Wednesday after that I got the pathology reports, and I have metastatic breast cancer."

Shayna Daugherty

Community support fuels family during shutdown

Local perspective:

Life for countless other government families, like the Daugherty’s, doesn't shut down because of the government shutdown.     

"It's been tough. There's just been so much going on, I mean it's hard to just deal with the current situation," said Mike.

Friends helped wherever they could, and so too did the family’s church. 

"They gave us like a hundred dollars in gift cards for food and one of our friends set up a GoFundMe for us," said Shayna.

Others have brought in meals for the family of five.

"So we're blessed to have some community support during this really terrible time," said Shayna. 

"During this time, you really want to put your faith in God, but also there's so much fear going on and so much, I would say, like negative energy, in the country right now related to this whole situation," said Mike. "I do believe there are things that people in our country can do to fix this issue, and you know I really hope that they can and will." 

Unexpected vehicle failure

Dig deeper:

One more thing, since the shutdown started, the transmission in their SUV went out. Never a good time for so many unexpected events, magnified though, when there is no paycheck coming in. 

Mike Daugherty says there's just a lot of concern, but yet he adds, "I do believe god has a plan."