Hi my name is Paula and my Father Paul has Parkinson’s Disease. He was diagnosed in 2011 and retired from work the same year. In the beginning he had very mild symptoms and loved being active and playing golf with his work buddies!! As the years passed by, his symptoms progressed and eventually stopped playing and doing things he loved because honestly I felt like he was embarrassed by his tremors, he didn’t want people to stare at him. Parkinson’s is a disorder of the central nervous system and can affect a lot of things in the body but the most debilitating symptoms are things like movement, balance and coordination, which a lot of times results in people falling, and this is what’s been happening with my father. I’d say in the past 8 months, he has been falling a lot more then usual, and with every fall he feels more and more defeated! Most of the time they’ve been minor falls but one resulted in a visit to the hospital and the other was a hospital visit followed by 4 weeks in a nursing rehab. Fast forward another 4 and a half weeks and he’s currently back in the hospital 21 days now. The doctors and therapists want him to go to rehab, which apparently the insurance company doesn’t feel is medically necessary, and they denied the place they want him to go to. The doctor and the rehab hospital actually appealed the denial and for a moment I thought things were going in our favor because a lady I called at the insurance company told me the denial decision was reversed that he was approved to go! I cried tears of joy, we were so excited, my father was so excited!! Although there seemed to be a discrepancy because the rehab hospital wasn’t getting the same information that I was, so I called to only find out that 2 people gave me the wrong information, that he in fact was not approved that they still denied him!! It broke my heart to tell my dad that he now can’t go because someone told us wrong!! The rehab hospital said the only option now is to pay privately which is $8400 a week!! You pay into Medicare all your life and make payments to your insurance company to only get denied when you really need it! The rehabilitation hospital the doctors want him to go to has very good ratings and they do 3 hours of rehab a day!! The idea is more intense therapy a day and that’s what my dad needs! I’m hoping it’s only 2 weeks. My parents mean the world to me and it breaks my heart for them to not get the care they need! I want to give them everything they deserve and more as they’ve always done for me and it breaks my heart that I can’t! This has been really hard on my mother as well, she also wants him to get the help he needs so he can come home and be with her. My father just wants to get some therapy and get stronger so he can enjoy his life with his family and not be the burden he feels that he is, even though we tell him he’s not.

Thank you so much for reading our story. ❤️If you can donate to my fathers care I would greatly appreciate anything. ❤️