I have never needed help in my adult life. I grew up poor and conquered self learning in the technology space and before I randomly got sick I was close to having everything a person could need/want but in 2015 while a friend was visiting me in my new town (near Cincinnati OH) we hit the golf course like the good old days and shot 9 holes for fun but after golfing I had a weird pain in my throat/chest and my friend took off for the 5 hour drive home that night and I found myself in the worst pain of my life barely able to move but somehow drove myself to the ER just down the road and to make a long story short they misdiagnosed me with GERD that night only for me to return 6 hours later via ambulance feeling like I was having a heart attack. I was admitted with pneumonia and an unknown issue with my chest and they again misdiagnosed me partly telling me that I must be aspirating in my sleep causing pneumonia but I knew this was related to my physical activity of playing golf that somehow. After many CAT Scans, X-Rays, EKGs, blood work by the gallon it seemed for 5 days I was released on anti-biotics and pain medication. I had trouble breathing for about 3 weeks and then felt fine until exactly 30 days later I woke up with the same extreme pain and called a work friend to take me to the ER where I was again admitted this time to the step down ICU with severe pneumonia and this extreme pain in my chest. 9 days later I was released after again countless tests and doctors trying to figure out why this is happening. Exactly 30 days later again I found myself in that ER again this time crying in pain so bad they immediately gave me an IV and pain relief and this time I ended up in the ICU in grave condition with sepsis. I started to lose reality and literally thought I was on another planet now and other weird things that going septic can do to your mind. My family rushed in from 5 hours away and everyone knew I was at risk of not making it but there was a very special young doctor who was a lung specialist who took my case and came to my bed and asked me to hold on until the morning he was going to figure this out for me he promised and he actually came back around midnight that night and said he thinks that I have a condition called Pericarditis and that he thinks Prednisone could save me from death in this case but also help this issue along with an old drug called colchicine.. They gave 60mg of steroids by IV and within a couple hours I felt 500% better mostly because the pain was reduced heavily and my mind wasn’t in outer space for the lack of a better analogy. I was moved out of the ICU the next day but spent 2 more days for a total of 13 this time in the hospital. Little did I know this was just the beginning of the nightmare to come. To make a very long story shorter the steroids worked until I tapered off then I would be right back in the hospital for a week with an infection/pain and this continued until I had spent 72 nights in a 6 month period in 2015/2016 and I had basically got max out of pocket bills for two years close together which wiped out my savings along with the fact that I was being paid very well but lived in an expensive area close to work at the time and my monthly bills and expenses were over 4k at the time. I became so weak and sick that I started looking for a new job that would allow me to work at home in attempt to move back with family back in northern OH so I could go to the Cleveland Clinic for care since they were basically the only place other than Mayo who had a Pericarditis clinic and they had the worlds number one expect Dr. Klein. I found a remote job on contract and made the move and little did I know this would cause my financial ruin in the end. I ended up getting sick in my second week of work at the new job and admitted to the Cleveland Clinic for nearly two weeks with double pneumonia and this time I left the hospital on home oxygen and just a few weeks later I was back in the hospital and spent nearly 12 days in the ICU and just a few weeks after that I spent several weeks admitted and this time I started getting mistreated for pain and had to sign myself out and take a taxi to another hospital which found out I also had pancreatitis and they put me on strong pain relief understanding how awful that is. During all these stays I received at least 8 CAT Scans, dozens of ultra sounds and x-rays, MRIs and so many other heart and lung tests I couldn’t remember them all. All of this would had been ok if I would have stayed at my old job but moving jobs I had to wait for my new insurance to kick in after 90 days and at the time I was so sick I was not even thinking to ask someone how to make sure I was covered in the gap. Even after many discounts of 50% or more in some cases I had multiple SIX FIGURE hospital bills and dozens of others that were 20k and under. This devastated me and at the time I still had perfect credit, a 401k and 10k I had in a shoebox incase something bad happened but I could have never seen this coming as I was perfectly healthy the day before this started. I foolishly tried to manage these bills with the discounts and programs they helped me get and basically financially wiped myself off the face of the earth liquidating my 401k, my emergency fund and anything else I had trying to manage the payment plans. I was able to take out several 30k loans with low interests and I also had about 50k of unused credit at the time and foolishly tried to keep up with these medical bills and at the end of the day I still had over 200k at least I has not been able to cover but now I had all these loans and credit card bills which I paid on time for a while until my new contract job was abruptly ended and later on my insurance dropped and now I had a mountain of debt and no income or savings or anything. Over the past 2 years they have kept me on Prednisone along with other medications that has kept me out of the hospital for the most part but due to the high dose the steroids in my doctors words are “now killing me just a quickly” and life has basically did a 360 on me and I am now 75lbs heavier due to water retention from Prednisone, it has eaten my teether from the inside out and I have all the bad side effects of long term prednisone use like severe depression and many others I dont even want to talk about but you can look them up if you wish. I am only 35 now and in the past two years and 4 months I have left my parents apartment only for doctor appointments and once in a while to pickup some food. My spine has massive degeneration and my nerves are pinched so bad I cannot stand or walk longer than about 10-15 seconds but they have always put this off due to trying to fix my other issues first but it never happened. The reason I am posting this is that I dont have it in me to put my face on GoFundMe right now.. at least not yet.. I know I shouldnt be too prideful but maybe this will work who knows.
I believe I probably have about 3-6 months left if nothing is done to turn things around in a miraculous way and given that no other treatments exist except for the one that every insurance provider will not cover due to the injections costing about 6k monthly cash price but they will say they wont covered it because its not intended for Pericarditis primarily.
The only reason I am making this or asking for help in the end is that my little sister has supported me during many months when I couldnt work and/or needed medication or bills paid and this was all put onto a few credit cards over the past two years which I always paid at least the minimum because I did not want to damage her credit just for helping me but I cant leave this earth with owing her this money now that she just had her first child a few months ago and Covid has hurt her household finances big time. I owe her credit cards $23,xxx which again was living expenses and mostly medical expenses over the past 28 months or so. Unfortunately I will also have these expenses continue over the next few months as well so there is that too. I really am embarrassed to say medical bills were able to put me in this spot but its true. I also have so much I wasnt able to put in here because it would take me a week to write it all at least. The biggest thing I left out is that I likely have heart failure now (since March) and that is why I know my body is about to give in. I really just want to make sure I dont leave my sister with nearly 25k in debt and they take her house or something after she just had her first child. Thanks for reading this.