Help Dave Wood with Outstanding Medical Bill

Hi, my name is Felicia, and I am raising money to help with medical expenses for my partner, David Wood.

 

We ask for your help with a $7,600 medical bill from December 2021 that our insurance won't cover. We've been working for the last six months to appeal their decision and have gotten nowhere. We have had all our financial resources run dry by the intense cost of medical expenses incurred over the last year. I'll share more of Dave's story below for those interested in understanding it. In advance, however, I'd like to say that we are humbled by this experience of asking for help and appreciate any financial support you can give. Thank you very much.

 

 

 

Dave's Story:

The above photo was taken just after Dave's first medical incident in his health crisis, which happened on a plane to Chicago in August 2021. During the flight, he became tachycardic and had an accompanying shock to his heart. After this, he felt very ill, exhausted, and knew something was wrong with his body, specifically with his heart.

 

In the days and months that followed, he continued to be ill: his heart rate would be all over the place, with severe chest and gastro pain. For months it wouldn't get better; it simply continued to get worse.

 

Between August-December 2021, he went to more than 21 doctor appointments and 2 ER visits. In addition, he underwent intense amounts of blood work, tried a variety of medications, worked with cardiac and gastro specialists, wore a heart rate monitor for 30 days, had dozens of EKGs, an echocardiogram, an angioplasty, and finally, a cardiac MRI.

 

 

Doctors couldn't figure out exactly what was going on with Dave, and he heard the catch-all "must be anxiety" phrase more times than he could count. To David's credit, he was relentless in his fight for his health and to find out why this was happening to him. He had to be a warrior for himself when many dismissed his physical experience. Finally, after conclusive data from the heart-rate monitor proved he was dealing with critical arrhythmias, we understood that he was likely dealing with myocarditis- a known side effect from covid/the covid vaccine.

 

He became a patient at the Chronic Covid Treatment Center under the research conducted by renowned pathologist Dr. Bruce Patterson and his team in December 2021. It was then, that we received confirmation that his blood work is consistent with those suffering from Long Covid. In addition, David was fully vaccinated in April of 2021, and, through multiple n-nucleocapsid tests, it does not appear that he ever had an official covid virus infection.

 

At the turn of the year, David began working with a functional medicine doctor, along with the covid long haul doctors, to get him on medicine and supplements to aim to get him out of the autoimmune response that’s now likely responsible for continuing to create the symptoms: tachycardia, arrhythmias, costochondritis (chest pain), brain fog, fatigue, ulcers, and other gastro issues he’s still suffering from.

 

In January 2022, the financial strain from the medical expenses required Dave to go back to a full-time job so we could begin to recover financially and have better health insurance. While this was helpful in many ways, insurance still does not cover much of Dave's treatment: the FMD, supplements, blood work through covid long haulers, and hyperbaric oxygen chamber therapy. We’ve covered this out of pocket and continue to as a consistent avalanche of bills arrives each month.

 

As of the end of May 2022, Dave's back to about 50% of full health. While he continues to work with doctors for more testing, bloodwork, and medication, he does everything to improve his health, including eating a low histamine diet 100% of the time. We hope that with time and treatment, soon he'll return to full health; however, in this scary area of illness, the answers and outcomes to this are unknown.

 

 

The Medical Expenses:

-We have both shared an intense effort to pay for the medical bills and doing our best to stay out of crippling debt. So far, we have been able to somehow manage the expenses, including taking a loan out against Dave’s 401K. We’ve truly done everything we can to work.

 

In 2021, we not only met his $8,500 medical deductible through his insurance, but covered an additional $5,420 out of pocket for his medical expenses.

 

So far, in 2022, we’ve spent over $11,000 between his hyperbaric oxygen chamber therapy, doctors fees, ER visits, and medication/supplements.

 

All of that adds up to about $25,000 we've managed ourselves in already difficult times. We have one last bill that we've had a tough time managing, a $7800 from the Cardiac MRI that Dave underwent in December. Our cardiologist insisted he had this done at UCHealth, which was not in our network. However, we partnered with our insurance before the procedure to receive coverage out of network. We were assured multiple times by a claims specialist that our claim would be covered due to the timing and nature of the procedure. However, despite following all their instructions, in January of 2022, we received a notice denying coverage. For five months, we’ve been working on appeal after appeal as we cannot afford this expense on top of everything else we've endured, but insurance is not working with us.

 

That is why we are opening up our hearts to others to help us afford to pay this bill so that we can do our best to close the door to the painful year that was 2021.

 

 

Our lives have been changed forever by Dave's illness.

Professionally, before the health crisis, Dave had quit his full-time job to work full-time for my growing photography business as our lead videographer. He was mentoring new videographers and growing our video team. He was specially chosen as part of an elite group of wedding videographers to enroll in a 12-month course to master the craft of wedding videography. Unfortunately, he was never able to finish his work in the masterclass. He couldn't even see out his first full year of videography as he was sick in bed, and I took over the remaining video work for our clients. As a small business, there was added pressure in being the last stop in providing service that brings income into your business. There was no safety net of corporate paid health insurance plans, FMLA, etc. We had to figure it all out ourselves.

 

We were affected personally, too, as Dave and I were on track to get engaged at the end of last year and desired to start a family- however, those plans now have to be on hold until further notice as health and finances come first.

 

We are working so hard to be strong and to move forward with our life as Dave gives 100% of his effort to reclaim his health, and I, Felicia, do everything I can to keep our household together as we endure this hardship. It is very humbling to experience something like this in life.

 

We appreciate any aid you can give and/or for your willingness to share our story with others who may be able to help us out financially. We are committed to helping others who have suffered from hardship and life-changing illnesses. We hope that soon we have better news to deliver on Dave’s progress.