Christine's Medical expense

Hi everyone,

My name is Christine and I am a 31 year old from Bergen, Norway though I live in Cork, Ireland almost 10 years now and loving it there! This is the first time im doing anything of this kind but I really need some help. I do apologise this is going to be a long read.

TLDR : I am very over weight and was loosing weight but then got diagnosed with Multiple Sclerosis and I could no longer do much activity on my own because of the effects that illness has lead to. My neurology specialist refered me to a obesity doctor whom is recommending to me that I undergo a life saving surgery to loose weight fast. 

Full story below.

It all started when i was around 18 and left home to start my adult life. It got harder and harder to make the right choices and it snowballed from there. I didnt have the best salary as an apprentice in hairdressing so I had to buy larger packs of things to portion things across a week as back then, larger things was lower priced than the more healthy options. I would be shopping at places like Lidl because it was the only place in my budget. These portioned out meals ended up getting bigger and bigger. Bad Idea I know, but it was the hard unfortunate turn of events when I was younger.

After a time, I was getting more and more depressed with my looks and I tended to look to food for comfort, i know, bad idea. Different people do different things that make them happy in the moment. For me, that was food for a long time.

I really do not want to be that girl anymore.  I want to be able to go into a clothing store and buy the first thing I see if it excites me. Now, I go into a store and even the biggest size on the shelf is to small or just about big enough and they are practically tents and that is not how I want to continue.

I have tried anything that has come my way to loose weight, including shake diets, weight watchers and alot more, even medications from my gp that was thought to help along side a healthy diet. I was willing to try anything and some of it helped to a point and then i could not go any further even when also excersising at the same time as dieting. While doing these different means to loose the weight, I did go down about 20 kilo during the course of a year.

Things changed abit about 2 years ago not for the better unfortunately. I started having a lot of difficulty walking and in turn any kind of excersise got harder and harder fairly quickly.

I went to my doctor and after some time, I was diagnosed with Multiple Sclerosis  which is an auto immune disease after having some unexplained symptons for a while. This illness is something that has lead me to have a small number of falls and stumbles to the point I now have to walk with aid and even then, I am still not to steady. For anything longer than a simple 10-15 mins walk, I have to use a wheelchair so I dont hurt myself with a fall. On top of this disease, I also have to deal with sleep apnea and several side effects of both my illness and treatments that are causing me to have a very bad quality of life. A normal day got to the point it had to be mostly planned in advance and going out to do anything at all was a massive challenge that I rarely take on unless I had to.

This is me today 13th May 2017. 157 Kg and at higher risk for worse health issues. The list is somewhere around 10 differnet problems long at the moment and i really need it to shrink but with the combination of issues I have, it is very hard to get around and do this on my own. Something as simple as getting up in the morning is tough.

Because of my long list of health problems, I had to go from full time work to part time about 6 months ago because I could no longer sustain full time working hours.  I really do not want to stop working so I am doing all to continue staying in work instead of stopping and part of this goal means I need my health under better control. I really need a life saving surgery to get to where I would like to be.

For about 1 year now, I have been in contact with a surgeon whom has recommended to me that I undergo Vertical sleeve gastrectomy ( weight loss surgery) and that is why I am writing this. That surgery should help me greatly and allow me to regain some of my independance I have lost over the last few years.

This is something I am not going into lightly, but it is the next option on the table. I have done alot of research into the surgeon's team and are confident about the outcome of this surgery. 

I have done all the tests needed and been approved by the surgeon's team however this is something I do have to pay for because there is no public sector that does this in Ireland and that means I have to go to the private sector.

I humbly make this plea for some financial assistance towards this weight loss surgery as I am having a hard time getting the money together on my own.  Anything helps towards my goal and I will forever be grateful for the chance this will give me to a better quality of life.

Thank you for reading,

Christine