Three weeks ago we could no longer afford our 3-month Rx for DexCom glucose monitors, so we had to buy a 1-month supply and hope to be able to afford the cheaper-per-unit 3-month supply in a month. And then last week. I had to choose between buying food for the three of us or Dylan's insulin pods. So I chose to not pay our City Bill to make food and medicine work in the budget, and I've gone down to one meal a day. And that made me worry about what's going to happen when I can't juggle medical bills and regular bills anymore and Dylan has to go without his medical equipment for a while. I stay up at night and worry about the what-if Dylan has to go back to injections and gets an infection and we get another huge Hospital Bill.

Come this summer we'll meet our deductible and all our supplies will be free. Even a hospital stay would be cheap. But until then, we can't afford basic bills, food, and medical care... which could lead to a hellscape. And we make too much to qualify for assistance programs. Go figure.

We tried to do it on our own over the last year, we tried to dig out of piling medical bills and debt the moment they started piling on … but we can’t. And now I need to ask the World At Large for help getting out of Medical Debt and help us afford a 3 months supply of pods and censors for Dylan's insulin management system.

Here's how we got here:

In 2020, just a few weeks after the WHO declared a pandemic, Dylan took himself into Urgent Care in Spearfish with some intense symptoms such as painfully cramped legs and hands, weight loss, unquenchable thirst, and bouts of blindness.

At the time I was stuck in Big Sky, Montana with a broken car. I had also just lost my job because the Pandemic had shut down the ski resort industry and all of my clients had canceled long before that had even happened. It was a scary time for anyone getting sick, and I had to beg him on the phone to take himself in to see a doctor. We can afford it, I said. You have insurance, I said. Dont clog up the ER, but go see a doctor.

I didn’t think it was Covid, but it didn’t sound good.

Dylan would go and walk away from his appointment with a diagnosis of Type 2 Diabetes. And thus started our medical nightmare.

Thankfully we had insurance, a savings, and we owned our own mobile home on a rented lot ... we thought we were fine to weather a financial storm and a medical crisis.

Dylan would be put on Metformin, a fast-acting insulin pen to manage his Type 2 Diabetes, and given an appointment with a Diabetes Specialist, an Endocrinologist. In South Dakota, that means traveling is required. Appointments were backed up so far in the future that I was able to get my car fixed and get home, after a quarentine, in time for his first appointment in Rapid City. On his first appointment with his first Endo we were told she was retiring soon and he would get a new one, but that she would keep him on his regiment and monitor him while she was around. Between March of 2020 and March of 2022 Dylan would gain and lose 3 Endocrinologists. Also between 2020 and 2022 he became more and more dependent on his Flex Pens, he was requiring more and more fast-acting insulin. There were even times his sugars would drop so low that I'd find him on the bathroom floor, unresponsive, and I had to test his blood and shove food into his mouth to get him to come back around. We could tell something was wrong, but getting in to get seen was difficult.

At first, financially speaking, we could afford it. Each visit cost us about $160 plus the cost to travel to Rapid City and back. His medications ran us about $2-300 per month. It was a lot, but it was doable even with my forced early retirement and loss of income. In the beginning, when he was a Type 2, the cost was manageable. It was the swings in his health that were a nightmare.

And a re-diagnosis came and bankrupted us.

On his first visit with his fourth Endocrinologist, just a year ago, she ended up sending him to the emergency room because his urine test came back and said that he was dying of Ketoacidosis. He was in the ER for a few hours and then we were told he would have to stay overnight so that they could save his life and monitor him. I'll never forget being in the ER with him while they got him stable and the intake nurse made a comment about his insurance. "Wow, I've never seen an ER co-pay that high before." While she was busy making sure we had insurance, I started to worry about how much it was going to cost us to keep him, my son's dad, alive.

Shortly after we got into his new hospital room the in-House Endo came in and informed Dylan that he wasn’t Type 2, he was a Type 1. Dylan would have to spend the night at Monument Health in Rapid City under a medical drip while I drove home to Spearfish to be with our son.

Knowing what I know now about Type 1 Diabetes, Dylan should have never been diagnosed as a Type 2. He looked like a Type 1, you could see it in his face. He was young and fit, even on the "too skinny" side when he got sick, he was not obese - which is what you'd expect of a young Type 2. He was active and otherwise healthy and Diabetes runs in his family, he was a clear Type 1. The most common type of diabetes is Type 1. But because Monument Health was understaffed and going through massive turnover during the Pandemic, and because we didn’t know any better, his case fell through the cracks and he went misdiagnosed for 2 years until it almost killed him. He was on the wrong medication for two years and in the end all it did was cost us a whole lot more than his insurance would cover. Two years of battling Type 2 and we got no relief for Dylan's condition and a huge bill to show for it all.

The bill for the ER and Hospital stay, even after private insurance, was just under $9,000. The total, between the immediate doctor visits and new prescriptions and supplies, was just over $10,000. When I got the bill after paying for all the scripts and supplies, I had a mental breakdown that lasted for months.

The Pandemic had killed my career. And by 2022 I became a stay-at-home mom so that I could keep our son home and out of public school during his dad’s, and all 3 of our's, medical journey. We had done well enough to cover one major setback, but not two.

For the first 6 months we saw a potential to pay off that 9 grand slowly and painfully. His new diagnosis meant we'd have an additional cost of $500/m in insulin and supplies, so we could afford to pick that bill down to $100/m which was the original agreement with Monument's financial people. But we fell behind. And then Dylan lost his job and insurance both in November and went without work for 3 weeks before getting a new job, which drained our savings and left us having to borrow money. South Dakota is a right to work state and because Dylan required more breaks and took too much time off to handle his medical life and get used to learning how to manage his insulin, he was let go. That led to us having to default on a lot of payments, so we chose to quit paying Monument first in order to keep our lights on.

We bought our mobile home years ago, so thankfully we didn’t have to worry about paying market price for rent. We simply wouldn't have been able to afford another $600. However, three weeks ago, the guy we currently rent our lot from served us with an eviction notice because our 1969 Kirkwood, despite being fully remodeled, isn’t new enough for the new covenants. He wants us to buy a new mobile home at market value, from him, or get out. We refused and were served with the "Get Out" notice. We bought a home in 2014 and sunk our money into making it nice, and now because of new city plans and codes, we can’t move it anywhere in town. And there it all goes, jobs, house, and now we’re fucked. Medically bankrupt, the savings is gone, and we're losing our home. It happens just like that.

Monument Health is garnishing our bank account and Dylan's paychecks both to get their money back, and we need to try and afford a move before our eviction date in August. I’m pretty desperate for any help I can get to raise enough money to 1.) At least buy 3 months' supply of both his Omni Pods ($390 after insurance) and his DexCom's ($300), any additional amount donated will be used to hopefully make a settlement offer to Monument so that they'll leave our bank account and paychecks alone so we can catch up already. Our total medical debt outstanding is around $12,500, that number fluctuates with fees incurred each month, and garnishment judgments total around $9,800 of that.

I set a goal of $2,500 to be able to ensure medical supplies and equipment for Dylan. I'd appreciate help with the debt, but I'm mostly concerned with keeping Dylan on the pump and monitor system. Studies show that those with T1 on a pump and continuous monitor have lower risks of developing heart disease and dementia because it's easier for them to keep their glucose in range. Not only that, but having an on-board digital pancreas also lowers the risk of infections that come with having to poke your finger 20 times a day to test blood sugars and administer an injection 6-20 times a day with a needle.

Whether it's a $1 or just a Share, we sure appreciate your listening to our story and helping us out.

Our current plan is to move into the Tiny Home life, which means downsizing into my Van and a towable Camper and relocating to another state that has both medical access for Dylan and high-pay jobs. For that, we've chosen the Salem, Oregon area to be our landing spot to rebuild at. Dylan's new job with Spark makes the most money in cities and I can go back to work in the outdoor and fishing industry while still being able to live near major medical centers in a state that funds the type of care Dylan needs. We're going to have to rebuild from the ground up and live as cheaply as possible until we can rebuild a home and our savings, and the sooner we can take care of Monument Health, the sooner we can afford to move.

Cheers friends,

Leah B.