As a family, we are faced with a new fight after Frank has fought to improve after his hemorrhagic stroke in 2009. His long term disability insurer has decided after 8 years that they are finished paying his claim. We were given that news 10 days before Christmas 2016. We need an attorney in order to fight for his income, but because of the nature of his policy that was through his employer, contingency is not really an option. Frank has had to learn many things again since 2009. He learned how to stand, swallow, walk, and drive. To anyone meeting him or talking to him, they would not know what he struggles with still today. These struggles are not visible. They are neurological struggles that the insurer has decided to brush over and decided it was more important to focus on his physical abilities. They have used undercover surveillance to prove the fact that he can walk without assistance, go grocery shopping with our daughter, go out to dinner, attend a casino with his mom (which is something he truly enjoys as his day out), and get together with friends. This was all done in order to decide that he can hold a job that requires learning new skills, multi-tasking use reasoning skills, organizational skills, attention to detail, problem-solving, memorization, short term memory, and that he can do all of this while processing the stress involved in holding onto a job. Those abilities are all of the things that Frank has not been able to fully recover after the stroke. They are the deficits that he has that have prevented him from returning to the working world in the first place! He does receive social security disability from the government. As is standard procedure, they review his medical records periodically and in 2016 his case was reviewed and and he will still be receiving disability income from the government. Without the income from the insurer, we will, in all likelihood, need to move from the home that we purchased in 2006. The home can be replaced with Another, but to us it doesn't matter because we are together and have two wonderful daughters and a family that has been made stronger through our struggles. The basic issue here is that what the insurance companies do is just wrong. They know that the average person doesn't have the funds to fight back. This insurer has already been sued in the past and has had to pay for unlawfully denying claims in several states just a few years ago. We believe they have not Improved their claim review process and now have set their sights on Frank. We have already pulled money from Frank's retirement account to get us through because they gave us one month of payment after sending us the denial letter. We want to fight the insurance company, but we have a huge monetary hill to climb to be able to do that.  The costs involved in our fight are as follows:
1)$5000 to file the initial appeal with The insurer-per their by-laws we have to appeal with them first.
2)$6-7,000 for a vocational expert evaluation of frank's transferable skills
3)an unknown amount for a neuropsychological Independent medical exam (at least $2000 from what we have researched)
4)an unknown amount for an evaluation and report by a neurologist-not covered by insurance.
5)$1500- retainer for the attorney (there are not many attorneys who handle these types of cases. If we lose the first appeal, the case would go to federal court)
6)$350/ hour for attorney fees
We never thought that we would be in this position in our lives-that we would need to open a gofundme account, but it is our last-ditch effort to be able to fight. If you can help, please do. God Bless you and your families.

With Sincere Gratitude,
Frank, Stacey, Alyssa and Kaelah