Aidpage

My husband passed away two years ago which left my children with no health ins. My now 21 year old daughter was 18 at the time and to put her on my health ins. plan at work was gonna be more than i could afford to come out of my check. She went for two years with no ins. She works and goes to college and finally became able to afford a health ins. policy on her own. It became affective on the 24th of feb. On the 22nd of feb. she had been suffering from headaches so I had taken her to a walk-in clinic and she was given medication for migraines. (she was under alot of stress trying to work and being in her 3rd semester of RN school, so we assumed stress was causing her headaches) The headache didnt go away and within a couple of days her vision started failing quickly. Thinking maybe her eyes were causing the headache she made an appt with a local eye dr. on March 1st. The eye dr. saw something that wasn't right and called my daughters local family dr to have a cat scan set up for the following day March. 2nd. I went with her to the local hospital where the scan was done...then they came out and said they wanted to take another scan with dye...then they came out and said they had found a cyst on her brain and advised us to go back to her family dr. We drove across town right then and her family dr set up an appt with a Neurologlist in a bigger city in our state. At that time he went over her scan we had brought and ordered an MRI that day. We returned home and the following day he phoned us and said that he nor any of the neurologist that he had spoken with in our state wanted to do the surgery, that it was too risky and he would be looking for someone that would take her case. At that time he scheduled her to have a procedure done with him (shunts) to relieve the fluid around the brain which was causing her headaches. On the afternoon we were to leave to have this done he phoned my daughter and said forget the shunts, he had found a neurologists in another state that had done many of these and wanted to see her the next day. He had a plan to do surgery and remove the fluid in one operation instead of two. We took off that night (5 hours away from the location) and was seen by the nuerologist the following morning March 9th. He explained that my daughter had a brain tumor in the center of her brain...it was pushing on her optic nerve to the point blindness was in her short future...it was embedded also into the memory part of her brain and he needed to remove as much as possible to relieve her of her symptoms and that this would not be a fix, that she would never be fixed, she would have to recieve a series of radiation and then would be have to be monitored through MRIs for the rest of her life. He explained that this probally would not be the only brain surgery in her future, but that he thought with this procedure, radiation and close monitoring she could lead a normal life. I won't even go into to our feelings on what it is like to experience all of the heartache and pain that was associated the diagnosis of crainopharyngioma. (the risks associated with the surgery were huge, but doing nothing was worse) On the 11th of March the dr. preformed a right frontal craniotomy. He was not able to remove as much of the tumor as he had thought because of its attachment to vital parts of her brain. The hospital, Dr.'s and staff were all so nice to her. She was set up with a team who monitored everything. My daughters recovery was amazing, she did well and she was released to come home on the 19th of March. She returned to work and school two weeks after this and was doing great. The next step was Oncology. We went to the Oncologist office (also 5 hrs away form home) on the 17th of May. She was to recieve a scan and MRI and start the molding of the mask she would wear through radiation. Radiation was sest to begin on the 7th of June. 5 days a week, no weekends, no holidays for 28 treatments. We returned home to be called the next day to recieve the news that the tumor had filled with fluid again and she was gonna need another procedure before radiology could be started. On the 25th of May we were in route to the hospital to pre-op for surgery the next day went my daughter was called by the hospital saying ins. had called and denied the procedure saying they would not pay because it was pre-existing. We were informed that we could come in as a cash patient but that would require around 10 thousand dollars down. we remained in route calling ins and dr.s. Finally three hours into the trip we turned around to come home. As it stands with ins. because of the appt at the walk-in clinic on the 22nd of Feb. (two days before she was approved for her health ins) they have decided not to pay on anything, calling her brain tumor a pre-existing condition. (even though she wasn't diagnosed with the tumor until march 2nd) The procedure has been rescheduled for June 11th...at this time I will have to come up with 10,000 dollars for it to be preformed. It has to be done and the Dr.s feel that it can't wait any longer. We already owe over 81,000 to the hospital for the initial surgery (and of course there will be other bills that have not came in yet) I can come up with the money for the procedure on the 11th to be done (and of course that balance will be added to all the other that we owe) We are still battling with the ins. company, but even if they agreed to pay, there is a 100,000 dollar cap each year, and the radiation has to be done beginning in late June. (and of course because of my daughters diagnosis she will never be able to get another health ins. policy ever) My problem is radiation. It is told to us that this will be the biggest expense of all of this. My daughter has to have this also and I have no clue how we will make this happen...I need help and I don't know where to turn...My family has no money, where should I go???