Madeline's Ovarian Cystectomy Bill

Hi! I'm Madeline!

The Short:

I'm 33, single, uninsured and have a surgery bill to pay. While I can make payments, I'm living paycheck-to-paycheck as it is. This will be difficult and I won't be able to save money for other living expenses or rainy days.

The Long:

Earlier this year, in July, I went to the doctor for increasingly bad period pains. For several months I had increased pain and bleeding, and specifically felt like I had a knot on the left side of my pelvic area. I felt lucky that my new doctor took me seriously from the start and sent me out for blood work to check my hormones, and imaging to see if there was anything abnormal; the two of us suspected based on my symptoms I had a cyst, and we were right. And it was not tiny (neither was the bill for the ultrasound or new patient vists but I managed). Almost the size of a baseball. Luckily though, it was fluid-filled and not a solid mass, so cancer was extremely unlikely.

From there, I was happy to be quickly recommended to a surgeon. He ordered some more imaging with his own team (just to be sure). The surgeon was convinced that since the cyst was slowly getting bigger, it needed to come out. So, after a couple of months of office visits, blood work, imaging, and a pap, I was planning a cystectomy near the end of October!

I had to take off two weeks of work unpaid, but I wasn't too worried since I had some help from a few friends. All the while I had managed to pay all for these visits and tests out-of-pocket: a total of nearly $3,700. Big ol' chunk out of my savings...

And then came the surgery bill: a little over $25,000. I applied for assistance through the hospital, but got rejected because I make over the federally recognized poverty limit; I wish they had been upfront that was the requirement, I could've told them immediately I wouldn't qualify. The poverty line is roughly $15k, I make about $30k. Most charities and assistance programs seem to only help if you're on or below the poverty line, which most people will agree is too low compared to the cost of living...

Either or. I had the surgery! It went otherwise well, but I lost my left ovary to the endometrioma (blood cyst), and I was officially diagnosed with endometriosis... This could potentially happen again, which is scary to think about...

Of course I'm willing to make payments for the care I received, but I cannot make the $430 monthly the hospital is asking; I will have to pay much lower in order to still have money at the end of the month to eat and pay my rent. $25k is a lot of money and I will be paying this for a very long time.

What I'm asking for is as much help as anyone is willing to give.

The thing is I'd like to save up for other things in life. Like a house? A car? A matching furniture set? I can't help but laugh humorlessly thinking about how that stuff was already hard to save up for, now this bill makes it feel like it's going to be impossible. I'm in my thirties and I have a "good paying job", and I feel like I'm not doing enough, but at the same time, I don't think there's much else I can do to get ahead. This is hard. It's stressful. And it's honestly scary.

I am so thankful for the few friends who have already reached out to me, for my teammates at work who have been looking out for me since I've been back at work (it's physical, factory work), and my doctors and techs who helped me get my treatment. But this is a lot. So I'd be happy if I could get any more help as I try my best to keep up with my new bill.

Thank you!