Jerry's Transplant Recovery Fund
Donation protected
After 9 years of dialysis Jerry finally got his transplant! The "easy" part is now done. The next three to six months of recovery are critical to making sure the kidney is not rejected and Jerry stays healthy. This not only means a battery of daily appointments down at the hospital but also full monitoring to make sure no bloodclots form, no heart attacks happen, no infections pop up that compromise his recovery or indicate organ rejection, proper food preparation, and so on.
The long story short is he needs to hire a Home Healthcare Aide for a while to help me out. The average cost for an HHA is ~$15/hr. Even spread across credit cards and so on his disability isn't going to get anywhere close to funding much time for care.
I'll be taking all my vacation to keep an eye on Jerry 24/7 but, unfortunately since I'm not family I don't qualify for the FMLA or any other government guarantees or assistance. My company is going to be remarkably flexible but that will still leave gaps where someone will absolutely need to be watching Jerry, cooking, or taking him to appointments.
Any help would be much appreciated.
For those who are fresh to the tale of how Jerry and I relate:
We met each other playing a massively multiplayer game called Everquest back in 1999. Then we just kept moving from game to game for the next 5 or 6 years. Every few nights we'd meet up in the current game and play for hours on end.
Then sometime in 2007 he started complaining about his eyes getting sore and not being able to see. It would come and go. Finally in 2008-ish he was no where to be found. For over a month he was MIA.
I found out later he had been in the hospital where doctors had been struggling to diagnose a problem that was causing muscle tissue degeneration. Eventually the doctors found out he suffers from, among other things, Wagner's Disease . However in that month of what must have seemed like an episode of the TV show "House M.D." Jerry came out of the hospital:
1) Financially ruined due to medical bills
2) Had his kidneys destroyed by being overloaded trying to filter all the tissue and toxins from the blood before the doctors could find the problem and get things under control
3) Wouldn't likely be able to work again until he got a transplant because he's have to spend 3 days a week going to dialysis thanks to terminal renal failure
4) Lost his thriving career as an IT tech and small business owner
After getting on disability and Medicare he found out Medicare only covered 80% of expenses so a good portion of his disability payment goes to a gap insurance to cover the remainder of the $20,000 per month dialysis treatments.
For a few years he lived with some generous friends. However in 2010 that fell through and it looked like he would end up with no real options for a good living situation so, without ever meeting him in person, I offered to let him move in with me. I had a house I was barely using at the time and it seemed the right thing to do.
Since then he's moved across the country with me (twice) while waiting for this opportunity to get back a chance at a real life. I wish I could cover take all 6 months off work but it's not possible.
The long story short is he needs to hire a Home Healthcare Aide for a while to help me out. The average cost for an HHA is ~$15/hr. Even spread across credit cards and so on his disability isn't going to get anywhere close to funding much time for care.
I'll be taking all my vacation to keep an eye on Jerry 24/7 but, unfortunately since I'm not family I don't qualify for the FMLA or any other government guarantees or assistance. My company is going to be remarkably flexible but that will still leave gaps where someone will absolutely need to be watching Jerry, cooking, or taking him to appointments.
Any help would be much appreciated.
For those who are fresh to the tale of how Jerry and I relate:
We met each other playing a massively multiplayer game called Everquest back in 1999. Then we just kept moving from game to game for the next 5 or 6 years. Every few nights we'd meet up in the current game and play for hours on end.
Then sometime in 2007 he started complaining about his eyes getting sore and not being able to see. It would come and go. Finally in 2008-ish he was no where to be found. For over a month he was MIA.
I found out later he had been in the hospital where doctors had been struggling to diagnose a problem that was causing muscle tissue degeneration. Eventually the doctors found out he suffers from, among other things, Wagner's Disease . However in that month of what must have seemed like an episode of the TV show "House M.D." Jerry came out of the hospital:
1) Financially ruined due to medical bills
2) Had his kidneys destroyed by being overloaded trying to filter all the tissue and toxins from the blood before the doctors could find the problem and get things under control
3) Wouldn't likely be able to work again until he got a transplant because he's have to spend 3 days a week going to dialysis thanks to terminal renal failure
4) Lost his thriving career as an IT tech and small business owner
After getting on disability and Medicare he found out Medicare only covered 80% of expenses so a good portion of his disability payment goes to a gap insurance to cover the remainder of the $20,000 per month dialysis treatments.
For a few years he lived with some generous friends. However in 2010 that fell through and it looked like he would end up with no real options for a good living situation so, without ever meeting him in person, I offered to let him move in with me. I had a house I was barely using at the time and it seemed the right thing to do.
Since then he's moved across the country with me (twice) while waiting for this opportunity to get back a chance at a real life. I wish I could cover take all 6 months off work but it's not possible.
Organizer
Daniel Bell
Organizer
San Diego, CA
