Knee Surgery Recovery Fund

Hey, everyone--I'm Akil Alleyne, a 29-year-old who's had a really rough go of it the past 10 months or so. Two years ago, I tore the meniscus in each one of my knees after wearing some bad footwear (cheap loafers with thin, hard plastic soles that magnified the impact of each step I took on hard, flat surfaces). After moving to Washington, DC to work a couple of internships and eventually a full-time job, I pursued the main alternatives--physical therapy, painkillers--to little avail, then opted to have outpatient surgery performed on my left knee last August. However, I also have Von Wilebrand's Disease, a bleeding disorder that requires me to have special medicine administered before any surgery. Unfortunately, the hematologist I consulted prescribed the wrong medicine for me, and so a few hours after the operation, I started bleeding internally into my knee joint--an excruciatingly painful injury that took 2 hospitals and 3 weeks to get under control. 

Even more unfortunately, as the blood was reabsorbed by my body, it was replaced by large quantities of scar tissue that gummed up my knee joint and prevented me from bending or fully straightening my leg or from putting any weight on it. Several more months of physical therapy and two major open surgeries that aimed to excise the scar tissue and loosen up my quadriceps muscle and tendon failed to solve the problem. In the process, I was in and out of the hospital through all of last fall and winter, suffering more internal bleeding, a couple of bouts of anemia that required two blood transfusions, and a series of recurrent muscle spasms after each surgery that forced me to return to the hospital after having been discharged post-operatively. I spent last Christmas writhing in agony in a hospital bed in DC instead of celebrating at home with my family.

Now, because the past treatments all failed, it turns out I'm going to need my knee totally replaced. And of course, my right knee is still injured with a torn meniscus. I've moved from hobbling around on crutches to walking with a cane, but that's all, and I'm still subsisting on powerful painkillers that I really shouldn't still be taking after 10 months. 

In the meantime, I lost my job at a DC nonprofit after I depleted all of the paid time off and disability insurance they were able to offer me. (The amount of time I had to take off and the side effects of the painkillers made my position untenable.) So I had to move back in with my mother. The insurance I had at the time covered the hospital charges, but because the surgeon who performed the last two of the three operations on me didn't normally accept my insurance, the portion of the medical bills that I had to pay myself amounted to considerably more than I had originally anticipated. The job I had didn't pay much in the first place, and since I haven't been able to find a new job since last winter and am still waiting to have my knee replaced, I've reached a point where my money has run out and I can no longer make the bill payments. Unfortunately, my family's money is extremely tight right now, and so they can't offer me any more assistance either.

So after months of struggle, I've decided to swallow my pride--with great difficulty--and appeal for help. I have law school debt to cover in addition to this nut, but I fully plan to tackle those on my own, once I get my knee fixed for good, find a new job and get back on my feet. Right now, I just need to pay off these medical bills so that they'll no longer be hanging over my head. (I already had to pay to get one of them out of collection a few months back.) 

So that's my story. I hope that at least some of you will be able to help me out. I normally try to solve my own problems, and I've been striving to do that here, but this one is just too tall an order for me, given the time constraints involved. Every little bit helps, and I'll profoundly appreciate every contribution, no matter how big or small. Thank you all so, so much. :)