My Road to Kidney Transplant, Spread the Word

[jdwills83]

http://funds.gofundme.com/jk70

MY Story, My Road to Kidney Transplant

Please repost link and ask all of your friends to repost on facebook, myspace, twitter!!

Thank you!

[okarol]

Hey, I watched the video and read your story. From our experience Jenna was covered by Medicare for the dialysis and transplant, and immunosuppressants for 3 years. We also have Blue Shield which picked up costs as a secondary insurer. Beyond that those expenses, what we paid for out of pocket was traveling back and forth to the hospital (2 hours drive away) and a few things related to being away from home for 5 weeks following the transplant (we had to stay close to the hospital, luckily a friend let us stay at their home.) We paid her donors airfare and lodging (2 visits - one for testing, one for surgery - flights, hotel and rental car, from Ohio with her husband, total $2500.) Jenna only had plasmapheresis 4 times, one right before surgery and 3 afterwards, which was also covered by Medicare. She gets $600 a month disability, still lives at home with us, does not have a car or insurance, and is currently looking for work (which is not happening, economy as it is.)
So my questions are:
Do you have to pay any out of pocket costs?
Do you have to pay for the plasmapheresis treatments?
Are you getting SSI now?
Can your family help you with some of the expense?
Does your transplant hospital know you are fundraising? (some centers do not encourage it.)
Do you have a living donor being tested?
Just tell me if I am being too nosy. I ask the questions because these are the types of things people will be wondering about before they donate money.  It might be helpful to break down the $20,000 of anticipated costs so people understand how much is medical and how much is living expenses.
I hope the transplant process goes well! Good luck!

[jdwills83]

Okarol,

Thank you for the questions, it is great to see get some feedback from someone. I am trying to get my story ran on a  local news station to raise a little more awareness about my situation, but after a week of just trying to get the word out there myself.. I am not very hopeful of raising any money at all.  I will try to address your questions on my fund website asap.

THANK YOU!