Help Stephen with his vision loss

Hello!

My name is Rachel and i'm organizing this fundraiser for one of mine and my husband's best and oldest friend. He's been struggling with his vision for almost as long as I've known him and he's finally in a spot where he can start to get this taken care of but we need help. Please click "read more" to read his story below and donate if you can. The appointment schedule/procedure is also included below.

Every little bit helps and means the world to us.

Thank you! -Rachel

Hello everyone,

As most of you know I have been waiting to do this for awhile, but I am now 21 days out and still have not heard what my insurance is going to cover. I have estimated a goal based on that which I may scale back once I know what's happening. I'd like to include a message about what's happened and what's going on below.

In 2015 I started noticing my vision was declining, I thought I just was developing an astigmatism. Of the course of that year my vision rapidly declined. By 2016 it was so noticably bad that friends and family were concerned. My brother-in-law in particular had encouraged me to go get an eye exam and a family friend offered to pay for it and cover my glasses or contacts. This was when I learned that I have Keratoconus, the eye doctor I saw said there was not much that could be done for me at his office and referred me to St. Louis University. It took several months to get in to a see a doctor, at this point I had learned I was legally blind in both eyes, with my left eye being worse. They recommended another appointmet and an appointment with a contact lens specialist. By 2017 with the help of friends and family, I had made all my appointments. By May I had been fitted for Rigid Gas Permeable contact lenses, which my older sister helped me get. They were incredibly uncomfortable and I could only wear them while working. I was recommended to come back once a year for additional eye exams to monitor the progression of my condition. I started working again and things were going well for about 2 years.

In 2019 I was working for an IT contractor, once COVID hit we had setup a lot of remote work systems and then our contracts dried up and I began working contract to contract as I was laid off from my normal work. In May of 2020 my contact lens broke and I could not afford to replace it. Since then I have not had corrective lenses and I could not afford to go to another fitting as I no longer had insurance. Over the past 2 years my vision has started getting worse again. I luckily qualified for Missouri Medicaid, and I was able to get back into St. Louis University a few months ago. This is when I got some pretty bad news.

My cornea specialist does not believe the progression of my eye condition will stop on its own. This means that if something is not done my corneas will rupture and I could become permanently blind. I was scheduled to see a specialist that does a procedure called Crosslinking to stop the progression. I saw him in August, where I got even more bad news. My left eye has progressed so far that it I cannot have crosslinking in that eye. I was then referred to his office to schedule crosslinking for my right eye. I found out on September 30th that my procedure will be done on October 31st at 7:15AM.

My recovery time for this procedure is around 3-5 months, the first week I will likely have my functional eye taped shut. I have set a goal of $4000 not knowing what my insurance will cover. I should find out this week how much my insurance covers and anything else will be allocated to getting back on my feet over the next 6 months. I have several job opportunities on the horizon and I am just looking to finally move on with my life without this looming over me over the next year. This has been an incredibly stressful and depressing. I have missed out on many opportunities because of this, and I just can't do this on my own. I need help. My goals right now are to get this done, get fitted for a lens by March, return to work, and find out what can be done about my left eye. Because I have been out of work, I have had a lot of time to make plans, and I started exercising again. I have set a goal for myself to run the St. Louis Marathon or at least half-marathon in April.I have a much more positive outlook on life with this on the horizon but the stress is killing me. Any help is appreciated.

Thank you for reading and thank you everyone for your support,

Stephen.