Medical Bills due to Injury

Hi. I'm Charlie Kibler, a graphic artist by trade, specializing in graphics for board war-game companies (yeah, it's a niche market, to be sure). Since opening my sole proprietorship (ckiblerGRAFIX) about 10 years ago I've not been covered by regular health insurance (too expensive, and my wife and I have always been pretty healthy) -- but we elected to subscribe to a "hospital indemnity" insurance plan, which I *thought* would cover any large hospital bills should we be so unlucky as to incur such. Turns out that insurance will only pay a very small fraction (about 3K) of the 40K I now owe.

When & How, you ask?  Well, I was in the backyard back on Thursday, March 19 of this year. I'd just gotten a brand new polesaw, and was busy trimming some branches from a mostly dead tree. The saw got "crimped" in a branch, so I got my stepladder to reach up & try to free it. Never got there... In my haste I must not've "planted" the ladder firmly, and it fell off to the right, and I fell off to the left.  I instinctively put my left arm out to "cushion" the fall, but -- despite falling only a few feet -- I ended up dislocating my left elbow and breaking  both bones in my left wrist (forearm).

We first went to a local Urgent Care facility, but after a quick look (and the first set of X-rays), they sent us down the road to the ER in Upper Chesapeake Hospital. If it had just been one injury or the other, the "fix up" would've been relatively simply & cheap (or so I was told). After a few hours there (and more X-rays), they decided an upper arm specialist would be needed, and sent me via ambulance to the Univ. of Maryland Shock Trauma Center in downtown Baltimore. Once there, the physicians expertly reset the elbow and (temporarily) the broken bones. Next morning I required surgery on the wrist, and was released later that day in a fat L-shaped cast -- complete w/ steel rod running along the cast's underside from wrist to armpit.

Now, two months later, the arm has been healing well, and I'm visiting a physical therapist twice/week, and doing PT twice/day at home as well.

Needless to say, all this has not been inexpensive. Medical bills have now "come home to roost" from both hospitals, as well as the Physical Therapist. Already totaling more than $40,000, the bills are more than we can pay -- and they are wanting payment now, of course.

It was suggested to me by more than one acquaintance that I should consider a "Go Fund Me" campaign. At first I balked at the idea of "begging" for money, but after seeing the reality of the bills we have in front of us, I thought, "What have I got to lose?"

Anything you can donate, from $1 to more, would be very appreciated.