For those who know Kim you may know that she has been struggling with lipedema for the past six years. In 2018, she started to notice something was wrong, but she wasn’t officially diagnosed until 2021 because of limited knowledge of this disease within the medical community.

Unfortunately, she’s also been struggling with her insurance company for nearly as long. Kim submitted over 1,000 pages of documentation to her insurance company which included letters of medical necessity from multiple doctors and surgeons across the country who specialize in the treatment of this disease, functional assessments, and other documentation regarding conservative treatments which are a prerequisite for surgery based on insurance policies. Even though she has done everything required by the insurance company to approve the necessary surgery and has provided documentation which clearly supports that this disease is impacting her quality of life, the insurance company disagrees and has denied her claims multiple times stating it is “cosmetic”, “not medically necessary” and/or “doesn’t impact quality of life”.

This is not cosmetic. This does impact her quality of life. The pain associated with this disease is constant and at times unbearable. Kim has been working from home since 2022, attends church online, and on the rare occasion that she attends family get-togethers, can tolerate no longer than a couple of hours. For the past few years, she has been unable to participate in the Sole Burner 5K walk every Mother’s Day weekend which has been an important event in her life for 22 years. Kim leaves her home for doctor appointments, physical therapy, and walking laps in the pool to maintain her strength. It is obvious to everyone that knows her that this has immensely diminished her quality of life based solely on the physical impacts, not to mention the mental and emotional impacts.

Kim has held out hope that God will answer her prayers and she will see an APPROVAL stamp on her latest and final insurance claim; however, the denial was upheld by the appeal panel. She has finally opened her heart to the idea that maybe God’s way of taking care of her is by blessing her with a large group of family and friends who care and who want to see her get back to the quality of life she enjoyed before lipedema.

This is where the ask comes in. Since insurance has repeatedly denied Kim’s claims to cover the necessary surgeries, based on advice from others who have also gone through this painstaking process with insurance companies, she consulted with a surgeon in Germany. The surgeon recommends three surgeries, but Kim is hoping that two will bring her to the point of being able to enjoy life again. Even with travel costs, the surgeries are more affordable in Germany than in the US and would provide more aftercare to ensure a successful recovery. If we can raise enough money ($60,000) to cover two of the three surgeries needed along with the travel costs for her and a travel companion to care for her, she can be on their schedule for the first surgery as early as August. The second surgery would be scheduled for approx. six months later.

To learn more about lipedema, please visit the Lipedema Foundation website at https://www.lipedema.org/.

Kim has struggled with this decision and believes that God has a plan and a purpose in it. On behalf of Kim and our family, heartfelt appreciation for any financial support you can provide. I know she will also appreciate your love and prayers if you are not able to support financially.