Help Military Wife Get Vital Surgery

December 16th, 2024 - I was having a normal day. Chris (my husband) had just gotten back from a deployment the week before. We were busy just doing family stuff. Suddenly, I had a sharp, knifing pain in my abdomen that brought me to my knees. I insisted I was fine and didn't need to go to the emergency room, but the pain didn't go away. I gave in 20 minutes later, and we left for the hospital. Naturally, they did all the tests and scans, gave me some medicine that made me forget all the discomfort. I was discharged a few hours later after being told I have a complicated-looking mass of cysts on my left ovary. I was given a referral to see a specialist and a few days of heavy pain pills.

The next day, I called the specialist to get an appointment. Naturally, due to the holidays, they were backed up and unable to see me until January 2nd. I called my PCM and asked what we could do with pain management until my follow-up, as the pills from the ER would not last until the 2nd. I was able to get into another doctor on the 28th, and she gave me a refill for another kind of pain pill that really didn't help the pain. Through the holidays, I just grinned and bore the pain and tried to be present with family and friends. It was not amazing, but I got through it.

Finally, the day came for my specialist appointment. I met with the doctor, and she said, "Well, that ovary has to go!" I was not surprised by that, given the amount of pain I was in. Now we come to the great part! The hospital put in the request for approval to Tricare. My surgery was scheduled for January 8th. Everything was finally working out! Light was at the end of the tunnel. Later that afternoon, I got a call from the doctor's office, and she said Tricare can't find me in their system, and she was going to keep trying to figure out what's going on.

The next day, Friday the 3rd, I received a call from the hospital. They still couldn't figure out what was happening, so Chris got on the phone and called Tricare from our end to see what could be done. He spent 4 hours on hold and was unable to get through. Naturally, these things happen over a weekend, so we had to wait until Monday the 6th to get answers. After spending 3 hours on hold, my husband got through only to lose connection. He called back and spent another 3 hours on hold and was told by the person that he was transferred to the wrong department, and he transferred him to another department. Chris spent most of the day getting no answers. The hospital called a few times trying to give suggestions as to how we could go about getting my surgery approved. Nothing was working.

Finally, a financial rep from the hospital called me on Tuesday the 7th. The information she shared was that Tricare deemed my surgery unnecessary. They will only pay a small portion of it, and the rest comes out of pocket. For an approx. $30,000 surgery, they will cover approx. $5,000. So here I am on January 7th, on my last day of pain pills, canceling my surgery for tomorrow because I don't have $30,000. I know amazing things can happen, and I hate having to ask for help, but I can't live on the pain pills, unable to drive a car and function most days just because an insurance company won't pay for a needed surgery. If anyone can donate to help me, that would be amazing!