Help Dave walk again
It's been a long 9 months. I'm not out of the woods yet, but there have been therapy and surgery that have shed some light on the path forward. For the first 4 months I was employed and was able to keep my head above water, pay copays, keep up with the things insurance didn't cover. What happened? Glad you asked. Skip to the end if you're caught up.
The Story: Part 1 The ankle
The date is September 2nd 2016. I'm watching COPS on Playstation Vue (which I am really liking by the way), and having a few beers after work. I've had 2 maybe 3 beers which is not much for a guy my size, when I wake up on the floor. I knew I hadn't been out long because the cops were still arresting the same guy, it had been seconds not minutes. I'd had issues with my knees for months and getting up was difficult to say the least. When I was seated again my ankle hurt pretty badly. I had no idea what caused the fall so I just went to bed.
The next day I went to a cook out at my Dad's with a pretty decent limp due to the pain in my ankle. I went home, was watching a movie and had the rest of the beer and woke up on the floor again! This time the noodles I was eating were flung across the room. I got up and went to bed. Sunday and Monday I mostly stayed in bed hoping to heal my ankle (Monday was Labor Day so I didn’t have to work). Tuesday I limped my way into work and was really not enjoying the pain. Wednesday morning I got up and the pain was too much so I went to the ER.
They almost didn’t care about my ankle, they wanted to know why I passed out twice. I got a CAT scan, all sorts of heart tests and thankfully nothing was wrong that they could find. I didn’t get much as far as a diagnosis and thankfully there have been no further occurrences. I did have an ankle fracture though that they found on the second round of X-rays I insisted on. It hurt my knees too much to use one of those knee scooter things so they gave me a walker which is fine because chicks dig those. Did I mention I was admitted for monitoring and that it was then my birthday? Hooray for hospital birthdays!
I was told to put no weight on my left foot at all. Fine. Hopping around on the walker was not fun, instead I rolled around on an office chair. Luckily work was able to have my supervisor bring my laptop to me so I was able to work from home.
The Story: Part 2 The knees
The day I got my cast put on I straightened my knee and my Dad and I both heard a ratcheting sound, that’s not good. After a couple days I noticed that my leg would not straighten out no matter how hard I tried.The left knee was locked at almost a 90 degree angle, basically a permanent sitting position. I still had the ankle issue to deal with first so I continued to work from home and let the ankle do its healing. The cast came off and I got one of those boots, eventually that came off too and then I had to deal with the knee situation.
The orthopedist did X-rays and found that there was significant arthritis and the meniscus was almost non existent, it was almost bone on bone on the left knee. He said I would need a new knee or knees sooner than later. He recommended an MRI to see what if anything could be done with the meniscus for now. Surprisingly approval for that was pretty quick through insurance. However, I still had an old insurance on my file and I was told that would cause a conflict and I’d be left holding the bag for the full price of the MRI. I requested to cancel the old insurance and they dragged their feet until the end of November to get it cancelled.
Rewind a few weeks. I had a gout flare up in my right wrist (excruciating pain) and the doctor’s office did everything in their power to screw things up and not get it taken care of correctly. Not being able to support myself on the walker with just one hand, I was stuck working from the side of the bed. After about two days of this the right knee locked up as well.
The lady at the MRI department said I couldn’t use my walker or have anyone else in the room help me walk to the machine, just her. All 135 pounds of her. At this point that was not going to happen, I was in a pretty good amount of pain just trying to barely stand, let alone walk across a room.
The Story: Part 3 A third shoe drops?
By now it’s mid December and I get a call from my boss. Our contract was ending with PNC. The managers there did all they could to get me hired on permanently but they were already doing lay offs and there was no room in the budget this late in the fiscal year. My boss wanted to keep me on as well but the only other positions they had could not be done from home. My recruiter, my boss and the managers at PNC were and still are, looking for anything I can do from home until I get mobile again. Until then, no job. Luckily I signed up for disability insurance through work so I will be getting a pittance from them but not without much fighting with my stupid Dr’s office and the Ohio government in order to get Medicaid.
The physical therapist came to my house but hit the brakes hard when they found that my insurance ceased to exist when my job did. Over a MONTH after applying for Medicaid I was approved. I am continuing PT and had surgery where they diagnosed me with the worst case of pseudo-gout they'd ever seen.
Why am I doing this?
Today I found out the device I need to assist with leg extension isn't covered and will be $150 a month, and one of the drugs the rheumatologist says I need isn't covered and will be almost $200 a month. I've been slowly sinking into debt and these new costs are just too much.
IF I raise all the money in the goal it will not even pay off the main credit card I've been using for food, copays and neccessitied like toilet paper. I just want some breathing room so I can incur more debt without losing my mind. My credit score that I've been working for years to improve has taken quite a blow.
Nobody owes me a living, and plenty of others have it worse, but even a small amount would be a relatively large drop in the bucket for this.
How you can help:
-Share my situation on social media with (or without) a personal message
-Donate any amount you're comfortable with to this GoFundMe page
-Send positive thoughts, vibes, and prayers for a speedy recovery
-All of the above?
I really appreciate you even taking the time to look at this page, let alone if you're one of the people helping me along in any of the above ways.