for those of you who may care

[jdwills83]

   For those of you that may care... HELP! I am in deep financial debt and I can't seem to get out! It all started years ago with medical bills and then just escalated! If anyone here is willing to donate vial paypal to help me out please post below and I will message you my email address. THIS IS TOO MUCH, DIALYSIS STRESS AND FINANCIAL STRESS ON TOP OF EVERYTHING IS GOING TO KILL ME!!!!

[okarol]

Unfortunately many of the members here are in the same situation so it's probably the worst place for a plea like this. You could start a facebook page and ask others to help share your story. You can apply for assistance.

There might be some help in this thread:
http://ihatedialysis.com/forum/index.php?topic=16226.0

You may also want to check into getting your bills consolidated so you can get a budget you can live with.

Are you on disability? If so, creditors and hospitals may arrange low monthly payments or even waive part of their bill, but you have to request help.

Good luck.

[Jean]

I CARE, but there is nothing I could do about it since I am pretty  much in the same boat ast you are. Good Luck tho.

[KICKSTART]

Join the club ! Best to take okarols advice!

[kevno]

We all care about each other on this site. It is nearly every renal patient i have ever known as had very little money. You do not get money for being ill. Unfortunately it is a mean fact of live 

[RightSide]

Yeah, the good news is that my life expectancy is now so much shorter that by the time I exhaust my 401(k) plan money, I'm going to be dead anyway.  My 401(k) may well outlive me by a few years.

If I were still healthy and could live till I'm 80 years old, I would likely have spent it all and have to live on Social Security.

[paris]

I think we are all in a big boat together and sometimes I feel like the boat is going to sink.   I hate the financial situation this disease has put my family in.    Wish I had some good advice for you. 

[lola]

Hang in there, most of us all feel your pain. I was a stay home Mom until my husband's transplant failed, so back to work I went. FYI my husband also has Alports and our youngest daughter also has active Alports.

[kristina]

 I cannot send you money because my situation is very similar. Suffering from a chronic disease and being in ESRF is very expensive and not much is left to live on.

A word of advice... I tried to find help/assistance over the Internet with the result that people who contacted me were not serious but wished to be entertained by my desperation. Shocking experience! Another mistake was to give my telephone number to Patient Associations/Kidney Patient Associations/Lupus Organisations etc.: I had abusive phone calls but no help. If by any chance you can locate any help over the Internet, please let me know. I have tried many humanitarian organisations but they only exist on paper now. Going through given complaints procedures does not help either. Even the NHS-Medical Ombudsman exists only on paper.  I found this out after struggling for over 19 years through NHS-bureaucracy. Bureaucracy always wins.

I don’t know where you live but if you live in the UK the only way to receive “free” NHS-healthcare is to be obedient to every wish/demand of a NHS-GP/specialist, whatever their wish. If you  prefer to keep your dignity and refuse, you are from then on – as a result - only seen by medical students or young doctors without experience. There is no positive medical outcome and it is a waste of your valuable time. When I tried to get medical help at Accident/Emergency I was treated very badly after giving my NHS-number. (They obviously checked me up on the computer). No point in trying that either.
You won’t find a female agreeing I am telling the truth because many cannot talk about it in case their family or husband finds out. If you study my former posts on IHD you will notice that I was mainlh attacked by females and it speaks for itself.

Don’t  offer yourself for medical trials too easily. In my desperation I went ahead and was lucky to survive. I was given “Retuximab” and “Corticosteroids” for my ESRF and only realized later it was an experiment. It was known I had not seen a NHS-GP for years. (last time I saw a NHS-GP was on 17th February 2004) and so I was “anyone’s game”, as I was told once by a charming doctor. Retuximab can be very dangerous, some patients  lost their wits after taking it. I heard similar stories about other experiments, i.e. stem-cell-trials etc.

I am not on Dialysis yet and I keep fighting to keep my kidneys functioning with a very strict renal-friendly vegetarian diet. My kidneys are still “hanging on” at 10% function. I have recently refined my vegetarian diet further. I try my best with the very little I have going for me. Whenever I can, I pay for a private blood-test (Creatinine, Urea, Sodium and Potassium ) and I check my blood pressure regularly myself. Exercises are very important and I go for little walks whenever I can.

I do hope you find help. If by any chance you can locate a functioning humanitarian organisation etc., please think of me and let me know.

Best of luck from Kristina.

[KICKSTART]

Ho ho ho .. i thought you had gone ?  oh and asked for your fee back ?  Now i will help anyone on here in anyway i can, but Kristina you make my blood boil !!!!! It may be the general thought on here that no one says anything to upset you ..seeing we are all in the same boat (all having kidney failure) But woman you talk an utter load of codswallop and that is being polite. You do nothing but bad mouth everyone connected to kidney failure, and being a UK resident ALL MY LIFE I  cannot stand by and see you make a mockery of it.  No, its far from perfect , yes, it has its faults , but what you say goes beyond belief , it really does.
You say yet another mistake you made was to give your phone number to the KPA /PA etc and you had abusive phone calls ..abusive phone calls ?  Really? really? i know this would NOT be true. I have used the KPA and they bent over backwards to help me , i have nothing but praise for them.
You also like to state that on IHD you where attacked by females ..if thats me then yes and i will carry on ..because i see it as speaking up for my country , for health care /scripts/treatment/equipment that is free ..it may not be perfect but its there, unlike our fellow IHD members across the world who have to pay for it . If it bothers you so much go back to your own country because i know you are not British and pay through the nose for the treatment you expect.
If any other members think i am being harsh , then you do not know me very well. Its because i know first hand what really goes on over here and who does help , that i defend this with such passion. I will not have someone come on here and put the fear of god into other members about what to expect if they come over here ..we are not perfect , but you all seem to have problems , but we are NOT the nightmare this Kristina claims we are , and we certainly dont get treated how she describes !!
PS I would be interested to know why you returned to IHD ?? Did you find other sites not so polite to you ?

[cariad]

I don’t know where you live but if you live in the UK the only way to receive “free” NHS-healthcare is to be obedient to every wish/demand of a NHS-GP/specialist, whatever their wish. If you  prefer to keep your dignity and refuse, you are from then on – as a result - only seen by medical students or young doctors without experience. There is no positive medical outcome and it is a waste of your valuable time. When I tried to get medical help at Accident/Emergency I was treated very badly after giving my NHS-number. (They obviously checked me up on the computer). No point in trying that either.
You won’t find a female agreeing I am telling the truth because many cannot talk about it in case their family or husband finds out. If you study my former posts on IHD you will notice that I was mainlh attacked by females and it speaks for itself.

Don’t  offer yourself for medical trials too easily. In my desperation I went ahead and was lucky to survive. I was given “Retuximab” and “Corticosteroids” for my ESRF and only realized later it was an experiment. It was known I had not seen a NHS-GP for years. (last time I saw a NHS-GP was on 17th February 2004) and so I was “anyone’s game”, as I was told once by a charming doctor. Retuximab can be very dangerous, some patients  lost their wits after taking it. I heard similar stories about other experiments, i.e. stem-cell-trials etc.

Oh. My. God.

I cannot believe what you have the audacity to write, Kristina. You are, I hope, familiar with the UK's strict anti-libel laws, that apply to internet usage as much as other print media? You are doing yourself and IHD no favors by littering this site with defamatory comments in which you have frequently named individuals and organizations. The site owner and ISP can be held responsible under British law should someone decide to sue.

So, I don't agree with you because I am keeping some lurid orgy with my nephrologists and surgeons secret from my husband? These "Rituximab" and "corticosteroids" you mention are both extremely common drugs. A corticosteroid is nothing more sinister than prednisone, one of the most widely prescribed drugs in the world, and an extremely effective immunosuppressant and anti-inflamatory. Rituximab is monoclonal antibody chemotherapy used to treat cancer and autoimmune diseases. Seeing as you have an autoimmune disease, Lupus, then Rituximab and prednisone sound like pretty standard choices to me. I know that you are fully aware that I went through a stem-cell trial, and I strongly suspect you are trying to insinuate that I may have gone mad. I have not heard one story about patients losing "their wits" as a result of these trials. Under US law the doctor would have been required to inform me of this. The doctor disclosed plenty of other possible side-effects that gave me pause, but those were potential side-effects in standard organ transplants as well. Codswallop indeed.

I never attacked you, nor do I recall anyone else doing anything worse than strenuously disagreeing with you. You repeatedly turn up here, posting ever-wilder accusations about other IHD members and respected organizations such as Doctors Without Borders. You have the gall to pretend like you can understand what facing a chronic illness is like in the US when you have access to excellent and free health care. What is it you want from IHD anyhow?

JD, I am sorry about your situation. I can certainly relate, as the financial stress in my house has been dragging on for years. Okarol had good advice, check into it.

[okarol]

This thread is about financial aid. Keep on topic or I will lock it.
 
okarol/admin

[Sunny]

Do you have a Social Worker you can talk with about your financial problems? If some of it is medically related sometimes a social worker can put you in contact with organizations meant to help people specifically with ESRD and medical related bills. Otherwise, perhaps contact a lawyer specializing in debt problems. They can be very helpful in having debts reduced and bills consolidated allowing you to get on a payment plan you can handle.

[sullidog]

Yes, talk to a social worker. Also on the back of a hospital bill there should be a form to fill out to ask for financial assistants, next time just fill one out and see where it goes.
Troy