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My name is Pilar Navarre and I am married to my wonderful husband, Shawn. We have been married for only two years now, but have dated for almost five amazing years! He is my best friend and I can’t imagine life without him. We have had our ups and downs like any couple. We would come up with a plan and laugh through the struggles. Our downs have been mainly surrounded by the medical rollercoaster that has become our life. We have even joked around that getting married was when things took a turn for the worst. We trusted his doctor and did what we could to keep ourselves above water. Shawn is a type I uncontrollable diabetic and is insulin dependant. I never knew until I met Shawn how serious diabetes could be.
Just before we got married, Shawn’s diabetes was out of control. His weight was very low. Sometimes he would weigh 120 pounds on his 5’8’’ body and look very weak. His blood sugar would get as high as 400 and up. He would become dehydrated and go into Ketoacidosis (basically high levels of ketones are in the body). This can cause all kinds of adverse problems, including hospitalization. His doctor stated that we were not watching his diet. I disagreed. Trust me, we were. After being hospitalized for a diabetic complication, you do what you are supposed to. At this time, we did not have hospital coverage through our insurance. The insurance was really not that great, but it was better than nothing. So we made payments and pinched pennies.
We got married on April 27, 2013, a perfect day. Just before our first Christmas as husband and wife, Shawn developed another diabetic complication. Shawn had his first low blood sugar seizure in the middle of the night. I awoke to find him on the floor convulsing as I franticly called 911. I thought seeing him hooked up to machines in the hospital while in a ketone state was the worst. I was wrong. These seizures are horrible and I can’t express how they made me feel. His doctor didn’t do much. He just told us, that Shawn needed to eat more? And that this can happen. It still seemed like his doctor could do more, but we did as we were told.
The next few months were so stressful for us. The seizures caused Shawn to lose his job. He was a delivery driver and with the seizures, it was just too risky to have him keep working. We fell further and further behind financially. I tried to work as much as I could. But, with the fact it took months to have Shawn find a new job, we were just not a one income kind of household. To make matters worse we eventually were sued by the hospital we were making payments to. With the fear of losing our home hanging over our head, we filed bankruptcy at the end of last year.
Also at the end of last year, we had had enough with his old doctor. We decided to get a new opinion. This was a blessing in our dark financial cloud. His new doctor in a few months was able to get Shawn’s sugar more under control. Despite his new doctor being over 40 minutes away and Shawn’s new medical insurance having higher out of pocket costs, we thought 2015 was going to be our year. We have been making payments for our bankruptcy and were really starting to feel more in control.
But, at the end of January 2015, I slipped and fell on the ice. I broke my tibia, fibula, dislocated my ankle, ripped through the anterior tibiofibular ligament, broke two toes, the list goes on. I had ORIF surgery the first week in February. This surgery gave me some new hardware to keep everything together. Plates, screws, pins, wires, you name it, and I have it. I am still not able to work. Hopefully my doctor said in July, I may be ready for my second surgery! I was self employed. So no workman’s compensation or paid time off for me. Once again the medical bills are piling up. Not to mention the usual stuff. Broken cars in our driveway, light bills, you know the drill.
And that brings us to why I am here. Shawn’s diabetes still was not quite right and something was wrong. Many tests later, we found one of the main culprits—my husband has Papillary Thyroid Cancer. His surgery was last week. He is recovering, despite the fact he went into Ketoacidosis and the surgery had to be delayed. Being in that waiting room was unbearable. Wondering if Shawn's sugar would drop to low or go to high. Or if I would ever see him again. Words can express that kind of feeling.
But he did wake up and the surgery led us to other factors that have been keeping Shawn’s diabetes uncontrollable. We found out that Shawn has Hashimoto’s Disease (an autoimmune disease that attacks the thyroid), and hyperthyroid disease (which explains why he had a hard time up until this point gaining weight). One side of his thyroid had cancer and the other had mutated into a goiter almost three times its normal size! Shawn even had two thyroid mutations called thyroidea ima arteries. They form from the brachiocephalic trunk and ascend to the front of the trachea to the lower part of the thyroid gland. Only approximately 3-10% of the population has those wonderful things. Take that crappy old doctor. I knew something else was wrong and I am not crazy!
He is going to start new medications, may need an insulin pump, and now has also been diagnosed with an anxiety disorder. From the anxiety disorder we now know why Shawn has had small little epileptic seizures since he was a kid. We are going to be running tests to figure those out soon. The new doctor has been amazing. In just a few short months so many questions have been answered.
The problem we now face is financial again. We filed out all the necessary paperwork to start receiving Short Term Disability from his job while Shawn recovers. We actually thought we would be getting a check this Friday. But due to some “red tape hoops”, we will not be. They are even delaying processing the paperwork because the surgery date was changed? It looks and feels like we may not even receive any money at all. If we jump through enough hoops, his job is only going to approve a week or so they told us a few days ago. Even though Shawn’s doctors are telling us he is going to need much more time than that. His job even had the audacity to tell us that if Shawn comes back to work and has job restrictions after all this, he is fired. Add the fact that I am unable to work and that equals we have no money coming in to our home.
We never planned for me to fall on the ice and be unable to work by the end of it for almost a year. We never planned for Shawn to have cancer or any of the other health problems he faces day to day. Bankruptcy was never an option because of medical bills. Then to be faced with the same problem not even a year later, we never saw that coming. We did plan for help from his job, but not to be denied and delayed that help. These things you never want to deal with. Especially when getting better should be the only thing on your mind. Sure there are other avenues we can take. For example maybe state aid of some kind. But it will take time to process and in the mean time, we are sinking fast.
I don’t know what the future holds. I hope better than right now. I hope that maybe while you are reading this, you may be able to give a little to help us through. Or you know someone who can and will pass our story along to them. Perhaps you can’t help financially at all but will learn from our story. To question your doctors when your gut is telling you something is wrong before it is too late. That it is ok to ask for help when you are lost. Prayers can do wonders. All I can hope is that by you reading this, something good will happen. But no matter what happens, from the Navarre’s we thank you. We have been through so much, that thank you doesn’t seem to be enough. But, we THANK YOU.
Just before we got married, Shawn’s diabetes was out of control. His weight was very low. Sometimes he would weigh 120 pounds on his 5’8’’ body and look very weak. His blood sugar would get as high as 400 and up. He would become dehydrated and go into Ketoacidosis (basically high levels of ketones are in the body). This can cause all kinds of adverse problems, including hospitalization. His doctor stated that we were not watching his diet. I disagreed. Trust me, we were. After being hospitalized for a diabetic complication, you do what you are supposed to. At this time, we did not have hospital coverage through our insurance. The insurance was really not that great, but it was better than nothing. So we made payments and pinched pennies.
We got married on April 27, 2013, a perfect day. Just before our first Christmas as husband and wife, Shawn developed another diabetic complication. Shawn had his first low blood sugar seizure in the middle of the night. I awoke to find him on the floor convulsing as I franticly called 911. I thought seeing him hooked up to machines in the hospital while in a ketone state was the worst. I was wrong. These seizures are horrible and I can’t express how they made me feel. His doctor didn’t do much. He just told us, that Shawn needed to eat more? And that this can happen. It still seemed like his doctor could do more, but we did as we were told.
The next few months were so stressful for us. The seizures caused Shawn to lose his job. He was a delivery driver and with the seizures, it was just too risky to have him keep working. We fell further and further behind financially. I tried to work as much as I could. But, with the fact it took months to have Shawn find a new job, we were just not a one income kind of household. To make matters worse we eventually were sued by the hospital we were making payments to. With the fear of losing our home hanging over our head, we filed bankruptcy at the end of last year.
Also at the end of last year, we had had enough with his old doctor. We decided to get a new opinion. This was a blessing in our dark financial cloud. His new doctor in a few months was able to get Shawn’s sugar more under control. Despite his new doctor being over 40 minutes away and Shawn’s new medical insurance having higher out of pocket costs, we thought 2015 was going to be our year. We have been making payments for our bankruptcy and were really starting to feel more in control.
But, at the end of January 2015, I slipped and fell on the ice. I broke my tibia, fibula, dislocated my ankle, ripped through the anterior tibiofibular ligament, broke two toes, the list goes on. I had ORIF surgery the first week in February. This surgery gave me some new hardware to keep everything together. Plates, screws, pins, wires, you name it, and I have it. I am still not able to work. Hopefully my doctor said in July, I may be ready for my second surgery! I was self employed. So no workman’s compensation or paid time off for me. Once again the medical bills are piling up. Not to mention the usual stuff. Broken cars in our driveway, light bills, you know the drill.
And that brings us to why I am here. Shawn’s diabetes still was not quite right and something was wrong. Many tests later, we found one of the main culprits—my husband has Papillary Thyroid Cancer. His surgery was last week. He is recovering, despite the fact he went into Ketoacidosis and the surgery had to be delayed. Being in that waiting room was unbearable. Wondering if Shawn's sugar would drop to low or go to high. Or if I would ever see him again. Words can express that kind of feeling.
But he did wake up and the surgery led us to other factors that have been keeping Shawn’s diabetes uncontrollable. We found out that Shawn has Hashimoto’s Disease (an autoimmune disease that attacks the thyroid), and hyperthyroid disease (which explains why he had a hard time up until this point gaining weight). One side of his thyroid had cancer and the other had mutated into a goiter almost three times its normal size! Shawn even had two thyroid mutations called thyroidea ima arteries. They form from the brachiocephalic trunk and ascend to the front of the trachea to the lower part of the thyroid gland. Only approximately 3-10% of the population has those wonderful things. Take that crappy old doctor. I knew something else was wrong and I am not crazy!
He is going to start new medications, may need an insulin pump, and now has also been diagnosed with an anxiety disorder. From the anxiety disorder we now know why Shawn has had small little epileptic seizures since he was a kid. We are going to be running tests to figure those out soon. The new doctor has been amazing. In just a few short months so many questions have been answered.
The problem we now face is financial again. We filed out all the necessary paperwork to start receiving Short Term Disability from his job while Shawn recovers. We actually thought we would be getting a check this Friday. But due to some “red tape hoops”, we will not be. They are even delaying processing the paperwork because the surgery date was changed? It looks and feels like we may not even receive any money at all. If we jump through enough hoops, his job is only going to approve a week or so they told us a few days ago. Even though Shawn’s doctors are telling us he is going to need much more time than that. His job even had the audacity to tell us that if Shawn comes back to work and has job restrictions after all this, he is fired. Add the fact that I am unable to work and that equals we have no money coming in to our home.
We never planned for me to fall on the ice and be unable to work by the end of it for almost a year. We never planned for Shawn to have cancer or any of the other health problems he faces day to day. Bankruptcy was never an option because of medical bills. Then to be faced with the same problem not even a year later, we never saw that coming. We did plan for help from his job, but not to be denied and delayed that help. These things you never want to deal with. Especially when getting better should be the only thing on your mind. Sure there are other avenues we can take. For example maybe state aid of some kind. But it will take time to process and in the mean time, we are sinking fast.
I don’t know what the future holds. I hope better than right now. I hope that maybe while you are reading this, you may be able to give a little to help us through. Or you know someone who can and will pass our story along to them. Perhaps you can’t help financially at all but will learn from our story. To question your doctors when your gut is telling you something is wrong before it is too late. That it is ok to ask for help when you are lost. Prayers can do wonders. All I can hope is that by you reading this, something good will happen. But no matter what happens, from the Navarre’s we thank you. We have been through so much, that thank you doesn’t seem to be enough. But, we THANK YOU.