BRATTLEBORO-Lana Dever has spent her life fighting for others.
Now she's in the fight of her life for her own physical and mental well-being, and that of her family, with the help of friends who have set up a GoFundMe crowdfunding campaign.
Not only has Dever been facing severely debilitating health challenges that have already cost her her job, her pursuit of a higher education degree, and, at times, the frightening loss of her mobility. She's also losing her health care.
On Valentine's Day, her husband, Matt Dricker, received the news that he was being let go from his job at the Silvio O. Conte Anadromous Fish Research Laboratory, run by the U.S. Geological Survey, in Turners Falls, Massachusetts.
Since last July, Dricker had been the only source of income and health insurance for the family.
"After seven months, the financial and emotional repercussions have been devastating," Dever said in January. "We have reached the limit of belt-tightening, there are no more savings, credit cards are maxed, and stopgap infusions from family have been depleted."
After decades of connecting others to resources as a social worker and mental health program coordinator, Dever and her family were suddenly at imminent risk of falling behind on mortgage and tax payments, jeopardizing all that she has worked so hard to achieve over a lifetime.
"It is a monthly fight to cover bills and provide security for our teenaged daughter," she said.
And that was the situation while her husband was still working.
Now, not only is Dricker a statistic in the current administration's sweep to terminate thousands of federal jobs, but his wife and their 13-year-old daughter Alex are, too. The couple also has a 23-year-old daughter.
In response, more than 200 people have raised more than $32,000 from the GoFundMe appeal as of March 24.
Thousands fired from federal jobs
Dricker was the only IT person in the Conte lab, and he loved his job.
"It's a job he's wanted for so long, and finally, the stars aligned," Dever said.
He was hired in January 2024, but because government background checks take so long, he didn't start until June. Thus, he fell into the category of federal employees still on "probationary" status.
Dricker was among more than 4,000 employees who were fired that week from agencies that manage public lands. The Trump administration fired more than 200,000 probationary federal employees across all agencies.
The true horror and insult came, however, when Dricker and three others at the facility received termination letters - all citing "poor performance" reviews.
"They've been just really plowing through with a bulldozer, just letting thousands of people go who are under the probationary period all at once," says Dricker of the federal sweep and calling the experience "intense."
"It's the same language that they're giving pretty much everyone. It seems to be boilerplate. The reason why I believe, from what I've read, that they're focusing on the probationary people is there is a lot less civil service protections for them: how much notice has to be given, whether employee can appeal, etc."
Because the government does not have carte blanche to fire anyone for any reason, "I think that's why they stuck to the language about performance," Dricker says.
"I worked some amazing, upstanding people who were just beside themselves and wanted me to know they absolutely disagree and there were not performance issues - quite the opposite," he adds.
Dricker says the agency's director sent a formal letter back up the chain objecting to and denying any performance issues.
"It not only feels good to hear that, but there is a huge number of class action suits that have been brought to address these firings in numerous states," he says.
"It's pretty awful. It's not just me, though. This is across the board; thousands and thousands of people are all in this exact same position. It's an incredible time and incredible actions by the folks who just got elected to power."
Navigating in constant pain
Last spring, while recovering from two back-to-back surgeries, Dever began feeling pain in her neck and shoulders, a story that Jamie Contois, a former Putney resident who organized the crowdfunding campaign, told on the site and is integrated into this article.
Her condition rapidly worsened as the cervical pain became constant, followed by erratic loss of her mobility, gait, and balance.
Along with this came chronic debilitating headaches, nausea, and muscle spasms that last for hours.
By July, after using all of her available medical, personal, and family leave, Dever was terminated from her full-time position.
By October, she had to take a medical leave of absence from the graduate program where she was completing a master's degree in clinical mental health.
In November, she was finally diagnosed with a rare hereditary condition that affected her body's connective tissue: Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome.
This condition destabilizes and erodes the tissue required for the stability and structure necessary for the joints, organs, and bodily functions essential to mobility and health.
Despite the diagnosis, on Dec. 4, Dever was denied promised financial support offered by her previous employer's long-term disability insurance. Although she could no longer walk, drive, or hold her head up for more than two hours without severe pain, the insurance company wrote in its decision letter that she was "not precluded from performing the duties of [her] regular occupation" and that she did "not meet [her] policy's definition of disability."
The earlier relief of finally having a diagnosis explaining her condition has been overshadowed by the reality of a health care system "on the brink of collapse," as Dever puts it.
With very few specialists who treat the disorder and even fewer in Vermont (and none who are taking new patients), Dever has had to search far and wide for help.
Further complicating the situation, a specialized MRI machine, unavailable in Vermont, New Hampshire, or Massachusetts, is required to diagnose and assess the severity of Dever's cervical spine.
Recently, her physician was able to locate an appropriate MRI facility in New Jersey, but an imaging appointment was on hold pending insurance approval or money to pay for the scan.
Faced with the loss of her income, her job, her mobility, and perhaps her home, Dever has hired a lawyer familiar with her disability.
The couple has also connected with the offices of Vermont U.S. Rep. Becca Balint and U.S. Sen. Peter Welsh, and they are in touch with numerous organizations working to oppose the mass firings.
"This is just the beginning, as more Vermonters and folks across the country experience the shuttering of federal offices and loss of jobs across all sectors, cutting of services, and dismantling already insufficient social services," Dever says.
Working with legislators to correct the skewed thresholds for help is a top priority for Dever.
"Often what we expect for these kinds of services is that people be destitute - they require inhumane poverty levels," she says. "When it comes to social services, we're not as progressive as we think we are."
Dever observes that "we're not going to be able to rely on social services much longer, we can see that. We're going to have to rely on one another."
"It's my sincere hope legislators are working on real-time solutions," she says. "This didn't happen quickly and it's far from over, and we have to figure out what the state of Vermont can do. We're so terrified of losing federal funding […] so either we're capitulating, or we're thinking of creative solutions."
A wave of GoFundMe pages?
Dever and Dricker are making small wins as they proceed down a long, hard road, but the fight is not yet over.
"Coming from a childhood of homelessness and food insecurity, this threat is a constant looming trauma, making it impossible to begin the process of healing," Dever says. "When the people who are essential workers and vital community assets are removed from the workforce, our entire community suffers."
She predicts "a wave of individuals in similar situations and thousands of GoFundMe pages to follow."
"Without financial stability, I cannot get back to the crucial work of supporting my community," Dever says, predicting that community support for people like her "will be necessary as more and more folks find themselves in positions of economic hardship."
Prior to the current crisis, Dever was in the midst of starting a nonprofit to address housing equity through mutual aid.
"As a historian and community organizer, I knew that the web of social services we rely upon would become unstable or disappear entirely," she says. "I am not pleased to see that this is quickly becoming a reality."
She says that work like hers is needed - "not to simply weather this moment, but to create permanent change through community and collective liberation."
"What we build and maintain can never be taken away," she says. "I see this reflected in the community I have built. The road ahead may be difficult, but I know that there is hope. We need each other now more than ever."
Grateful despite ongoing challenges
Dever and her family have heard that her husband might be reinstated since two federal judges ordered the administration to reverse the termination of 24,000 probationary employees.
But official communication about what this might mean for possible restoration of pay or benefits continues to be opaque and secondhand.
"What remains clear is that anything that happens on that front will be short-lived, as we see far deeper cuts to the federal workforce coming soon with much more chance to withstand legal challenges," she says. "I try to stay buoyant, but I have moments where I falter and feel as if there is no hope - this is the new normal."
But, she says, "that dark feeling never lasts."
"It is always eclipsed by my ever-present hope," Dever says. "Whenever there is an act of giving or receiving, I begin to feel joy again."
The couple traveled to New Jersey recently for "the most painful MRI of my life," says Dever, thanking those who have donated to help with her costly medical treatment.
In a note to donors, she recalls "sitting up in a freezing room, with a very sweet radiologist who just happened to mention that she had a wife and that they love to hike."
"I could tell the information was intentional, and it did the trick," Dever says. "I felt a little bit safer - still cold, but in good company."
"I sat as still as my frame would allow. Tears streamed down my face. All the while, knowing how lucky I was to have this chance. So many never even learn this type of imaging can be done, let alone afford travel to a facility many states away."
The funding permitted Dever and Dricker to break up the drive to and from New Jersey with overnight stays.
"After the trauma of sitting for the imaging, my body could not have survived the return drive home without days of complications, pain, and limited mobility. Thank you for making this crucial support possible."
Commitment to helping others
Dever's young, formative years were unstable, poverty-bound, and full of trauma around things like housing and food.
It wasn't until 2010 that she was graduated from Brattleboro Union High School through the Vermont Adult Education Program.
She attended Greenfield Community College before transferring to the University of Massachusetts at Amherst and receiving her bachelor's degree.
Until she had to drop out due to illness and lack of money, she was pursuing her master's degree in clinical mental health.
"I use my lived experiences and challenges as the focal point of my therapeutic work," Dever says. "From a young age, I decided I wanted to ensure that no one would spend winters without heat, worry if they would be able to eat dinner that evening, or beg for the support they deserved."
At age 14, she volunteered at a nonprofit that provided child care for women learning how to enter the workforce after escaping domestic violence, her first role "in my lifelong commitment to community service," she says.
Dever and Dricker have continued their work helping others during the hardest days and weeks, now months, of their lives.
They help folks get to medical appointments, find shelter for those who need it, raise money for kids and elders who need food, and much more. Dever continues to advocate for kids in their schools and serves as a liaison for needed social services.
"Gratitude is reciprocal - that the act of giving can create as much joy as the act of receiving," she wrote in a March 13 update on GoFundMe. "Giving, when I feel at my worst, can pull me up from the depths, allowing me to feel a sense of joy and purpose, where moments before I felt empty and bereft of hope. I have always felt an overwhelming sense of gratitude."
With medical answers slowly coming due to the kindness of friends - and some strangers - Dever is anxious to get the focus back where she's most comfortable: on helping others.
"I want to get this behind me so I can continue my work," she says. "Anger, frustration, annoyance; those are quick bursts of emotion designed to jump us out of a scary moment. Anger might start a revolution, but it won't keep one going. You can't live that way."
She likens herself to an air bubble.
"I'm very buoyant," Dever says. "I may sink to the bottom, but I will always, always, rise to the top. And it's not blind optimism. I'm secure in my ability to do this work and in my history of seeing the kindness and generosity of the people who live in this country.
"There's a lot of fearmongering, but when you meet individuals one by one, there's more kindness than there isn't."
This News item by Virginia Ray was written for The Commons.