Aid for Lamar's Care and Family Stability
Donation protected
- _UPDATE : Thank you to everyone who has taken the time and donated and /or sent their prayers. Lamar has been referred to OHSU where he will be in good hands with some experienced doctors who will help him with his memory, hallucinations, insomnia and abrupt mood changes etc. It has been and will continue to be a very difficult yet learning process on a journey to the unknown but having many of you surrounding him with kindness, patience and love helps numb the heartache we all have. This disease is one of the most frustrating and exhausting to have or watch your loved one go through. On the upside Lamar is finally receiving his monthly disability insurance as I am still taking courses for being his caregiver in which later hopefully I will acquire an income as well....but for the moment-though bills are still tight-they are manageable. I will leave this open for any donations toward Lamars up and coming travels to quite a few destinations that will allow him to visit and for loved ones to have a chance to hopefully engage in arrangements to meet up and visit him much as possible. I don't have any set dates just yet but our sons graduation is June 2nd and we are shooting for beginning our travels soon afterwards. I will definitely keep everyone posted with dates of when Lamar will be coming to a town near you . Until then God bless and we will see you all hopefully sooner that later. Thank you again take care.
- It's been over 18 months, a year and a half since I noticed something was wrong with my husband Lamar. And I wasn't the only one. His job noticed as well. I'm sure they won't admit to it because according to them they just decided to get rid of the position my husband worked, CNC Programmer. It wasn't much longer I needed to be home with him, well, the moment he almost burned down the house because he was hungry but forgot how to /trying to cook! I immediately went full throttle on what to do next. How to get him checked out, in which you would think that would be simple but it was a complete nightmare! The fact that we lost our insurance because we had been getting it through my work, therefore being on unemployment put us on healt marketplace for lower income families. So all our primary Dr.'s have changed and if you haven't seen your primary Doctor, we'll then you don't get to ser a specialty doctor (Neurologist). So the endless phone calls, emails, texts etc had started and soon as I thought I might be getting him in to see someone, our unemployment ran out! Now we got put on State insurance, no income family insurance. So we got our doctors switched up again. At this point I swear I thought I was in hell. I finally was able to get an online doctor to give my husband a referral for an MRI, blood work and a ticket to speak with a Neurologist, right? Wrong! I couldn't get anyone to send the referral over to a clinic, we'll because no clinic/ doctors were taking out of network patients! I even spent 5 weeks worth of back and forth calls with a hospital to check if the received the referral to only get stopped mid sentence the 5th week with a receptionist telling me that there's no chance of him getting seen at their hospital. You would have to think that information would have been useful the very 1st phone call but no, not for me. Little did I know that was just the beginning of doors getting slammed in my face with doctors telling me sorry that they couldn't help my husband and for him to see his primary doctor 1st. In which case when getting bumped into state insurance, he actually received Kaiser which was what we had before he became lost. So his doctor got us in a few.weeks later. And watching my husband fail the MoCa test was a complete heartbreaker. But the real heartbreaker was yet to happen. See with early onset alzheimers dementia, you have to move fast! Why, because it progresses at a much faster speed than regular alzheimers dementia ( over the age 65) and my husband being 53 you would think his medical team would get him care fast? Wrong! Every appointment was weeks or months out. And they wanted to be thorough so a list of tests were to be established before any medication can be prescribed. Which I can see that making sense but if you happen to surpass the mild stage into the moderate stage of alzheimers, you don't get the new medicine on the market. So as the main appointment that we have been waiting for approached, which was scheduled as a zoom visit, in which halfway through the Dr. wanted to reschedule for a week out so he could see him in person. Frustrated yet understood we waited another week and went to the appointment. The morning after we had a follow up with the Neurologist in regards to the Neuropsychologist findings. Well that Thursday morning appointment was useless because the Neuropsychologist didn't finish nor sent the report until that following Tuesday. Amd in that report was what shattered me. He was in a moderate stage and no longer a candidate for this new medicine that has good reports of preventing amyloid buildup, the plaque that happens with this medical condition. And if this all wasn't enough hell we were going through wealso had to fight for our basic essentials and home. See even though we applied for disability at least over a year ago, we still haven't even been assigned a ssi/ disability caseworker yet. A year and a half later and we just received both jaw dropping, heartbreaking news. That disability that we have paid into since the day we got our 1st job, is taking their sweet little time and the way everything is playing out, we'll probably receive the check the day after my husband passes. And the fact these doctor appointments are so far out and far in between I sound like a broken record to all the debt collectors? "Sorry, I don't have any income and waiting for a decision from disability!" As the foreclosure papers are coming in daily, car has been repossessed, and endless phone calls from creditors. I can't help but feel I'm cursed and am at fault why my husband isn't getting the best care he deserves. As our only son turned 18 years old 2 days ago, I cry for his pain yet happy he has been rewarded a full scholarship to PLU. Saddened his last year at home and in high school has been put on the back burner due to my husband's health being the priority of the moment. I'm asking for help for our family. I already missed the birthday and I hope we don't have to skip Christmas? Please if you can spare anything that will help us greatly and will be much appreciated. Happy Holidays and may God bless you!
UPDATE! I requested my son's School which is a "Portland Public School" to send DHS proof of his attendance, in which they did not. We were to receive welfare assistance until his graduation but because they didn't receive a copy in time they cut the welfare! So the struggle is outright scary real.
Thank you
The Stilwell Family
Organizer
Tabatha S
Organizer
Portland, OR