Now that I have a reliable computer, I'm going to begin reconstructing what I remember from the meager notes I've kept. I will be posting January 1, 2011 to today shortly...
Robbed and nearly beaten to death by three Somolians that didn't speak English. When I only had $51 to split between the three of them, two held me down and began kicking and jumping on me while the leader beat me repeatedly over the head with the butt of his gun… resulting in…
9 staples in my scalp, 3 in my face, two broken ribs, three fractures in my left knee, a shattered left ankle that couldn't be saved so they fused it into one immovable piece and my left foot has a plate, five screws and a cadaver bone holding it together. It took almost six years and over 25 surgeries to repair the damage and I still have one more in September to repair my knee.
Since the attack in November of 2004 a private company instead of the state called Gallagher Bassett has administrated my workman’s comp. In 2007 I was informed that they hadn’t paid a hospital bill of over $20,000 and when it went on my credit report my credit card payments went through the ceiling forcing me into bankruptcy.
In 2005 a blood clot in my leg hit my heart undetected and caused a partial clog that resulted in one of the pulmonary chambers expanding to over twice it's normal size. Occasionally it'd take two or more beats to fill and it was only discovered after I passed out in our parking lot in 2007 and shattered my right arm in four places.
Three stents in 2008 were installed to try to help my heart heal but they didn't work and a massive 2nd heart attack found me in the hospital again with a fractured elbow from the fall. January of 2009 while in the hospital for a triple bypass, they discovered a double bleeding ulcer that was reducing my hemoglobin to near-fatal levels. Four days after I was finally released I had to be rushed back and had 900cc of fluid drained from my left lung.
Two weeks later I had a plate and 20 screws put in my left leg to support and fix my fractured knee, which had healed at an angle so that my leg looked like a clock reading 7:00. (It took four years to get to it because they couldn’t work on it while the ankle and foot were being repaired) A year earlier Gallagher Bassett decided that since I was able to hobble around on that fractured knee I could go back to work, so with it at that angle they demanded I put in 15 applications a week or lose my temporary total checks. After two months of agony, my knee doctor discovered that I was actally walking on the inner part of my foot instead of the bottom and demanded that they stop making me put applications in.
Five days after I got home from the knee surgery, I was rushed unconscious to the hospital. When they’d previously drained the blood off of my lung they nicked a blood vessel and weeks later it exploded in my chest and my damaged heart was pumping into my chest instead of my body. I went in on a Monday and woke up from a coma on a Thursday. The doctor said I had an emergency thoracotomy (sliced open from my collar bone to my left hip then up to between my shoulder blades.) in order to get to the gushing artery and I’d lost 2 ½ times my normal blood content and died (requiring CPR) twice on the emergency room operating table. A thoracotomy is one of the hardest things to recover from and they say I’ll be experiencing agony when I sneeze, yawn or cough for the next five years or more because of the damage done to my still healing ribs from the triple bypass.
I was told this January that I had to have a combination pacemaker/defibrillator installed because I still wasn’t improving from the triple bypass. The damaged heart chamber had come back to life and was beating out of sync to the rest of my heart.
A year into this ordeal in 2005 I was told I was a type II diabetic. Without warning blood vessels began exploding in my eyes and it required 13 laser surgeries in the space of 18 months to cauterize all of them to stem the leakage. This has taken most of the peripheral vision in both eyes and I had to start wearing glasses for the first time in my life.
Up until 2003 I was considered a “muscle-hunk” and was a professional portrait and landscape artist and photographer and had become involved in the male porn industry in San Diego as a cameraman and line producer. I’d wager that you have some of my artwork in your house right now as I scored a lucrative deal to do line drawings for appliance handbooks for VCRs, DVD players and all sorts of electronic appliances.
I earned enough to move into a penthouse in downtown Columbus and purchased a new Sebring convertible in 2004. A friend with a private jet would let me “hitchhike” when he went on business trips to the west coast five times a year and I had friends and lovers and led a wonderful and secure life. In 2004 I got a frantic call from a local friend I used to work for begging me to help out delivering pizzas because his whole staff had been either fired or quit… leading up to the robbery/beating.
As the surgery bills mounted and mounted, I emptied $45,000 from my savings in nearly three years to make up for the lost income to pay the rent utilities insurance and car payments… by 2007 it was all gone. A good friend committed suicide in 2005 because he couldn’t repay a handshake loan I’d made to him for $25,000 business loan to fix his bar’s roof. I’d never asked him to repay it and had no idea he was so distraught. I was devastated.
While I was in the hospital last year for the heart, knee and ulcer surgeries Gallagher Bassett began contesting everything they paid and dragged me into Workman’s Comp court nine times gambling I wouldn’t show up and they’d win by default. I showed up with crutches, in a wheel chair, I had external fixators sticking out of my leg, but I showed up. All nine times they lost. Being bad losers they combed through my hospital bills this year and refused to pay for any medications that didn’t have to do with workman’s comp covered surgeries. I suddenly got back-bills for my insulin, my heart meds and any pain meds for my chest that didn’t have to do with covered surgeries. Since the only insurance I have now is Medicare disability and I’ve hit their “gap” the bills fell on me to the tune of tens of thousands of dollars. The hospitals won’t let me “self-medicate” so I have no choice but to pay inflated hospital prices for drugs I already have. This has also resulted in 5-9 collection agency calls a day.
On January 1st of this year I became a victim of the Medicare change over and my 14 prescriptions per month soared from $15-22 to $389 and that didn’t include my insulin. I received a letter from Medicare that I make exactly $67 dollars a year over their limit in order to help me with my prescription costs. Up until then I thought it was a ridiculous myth that people actually had to choose between eating and buying necessary drugs.
I went from January to mid February with no insulin. Since then I’ve been depending on three different doctors providing me with drug representative samples of insulin, heart and pain meds. They also announced that I had to now pay $105 per month for Medicare part B and had to pay Anthem Blue Shield a $31 per month premium or lose what little benefits I have/had.
Since I get a total of $1,700 a month in workman’s comp and Social Security disability and most charities have limits of $1,200 per month-I lose. I’m on Medicare part B to cover my hospital bills. Charities such as food banks and pharmacies won’t help me because I have to provide proof I’ve been dropped by Anthem Blue Shield first. I haven’t been able to pay them a single premium this year and owe them over $168… they still won’t drop me, so I’m ineligible for help elsewhere.
Then I went to Medicaid. Remember how close I was to the limit for help with SS? If Medicaid pays the $105 per month, then I get that extra money to buy groceries… however when I get it, my reported income goes up and it takes me just barely over their income limit for help so they drop me, which brings me just below their income limit, and then I’m eligible again. Because of all of the repeated re-applications, rejections and approvals I’ve been accused of trying to defraud Medicaid. Because of this I have maybe $5 left in my checking account after I pay bills and rent from my checks. If anything like a flat tire needing plugged or not enough gas to get to a doctor’s appointment occurs, I have to make myself feel like a beggar holding a cardboard sign at an expressway ramp begging for quarters. Hence my close friends have all drifted off.
The safeties are there for the poor and the rich, but once you fall from middle class, you have to lose everything before you can get help. The depression keeps me from creating my beloved art and all my emotions now-a-days come out of pill bottles. I can’t move out from my beloved home of 22 years because I’d never raise the first month’s rent and security on a new place. I’d sell the 8-year-old Sebring, but I owe more on it than it’s worth, despite it being in immaculate condition with only having a little over 45,000 miles on it because I never go anywhere. I put 30,000 miles on it through business and pleasure travel the first year and only 15,000 in the last 6 years after becoming a psychological shut-in. I go days sleeping as much as 18 hours a day or 48 hours without it because of very real flashbacks and nightmares that leave me screaming in the night.
I used to live a life where I could walk into any store anywhere and buy anything without thinking of price. Since my constant hospital stays, I’ve lost my muscle tone because of lack of being able to go to a gym and all that beautiful physique has turned to blubber. I’ve lost my looks, driven every friend I have away because of the unpredictable post traumatic stress outbursts and/or depression and feeling sorry for myself. I leave my apartment maybe once or twice a week.
I had to renew my driver’s license before my birthday this month and failed the eye test. I have no choice but to drive illegally until I can pass another after some more surgeries. Now I find I have to have emergency surgery on my left eye, but no one to take me to the hospital at 5 in the morning and no money for a cab.
Hover your cursor over a date below, and it will "explode" out at you. Click on it to go directly to that chapter.
As long as you stay within this diary site, the directory will always be here waiting for you to select another chapter within it...
My earliest memories- My turbulant teens- Barberton-So many mistakes to learn from Columbus-Transformation
1987~1996-Livin' the Good Life-Moving from Akron to Columbus Ohio, my professional art career begins to boom, pizza business on the side, I invest my time and financial resources in a British car sales & repair shop, I branch out into photography, videography, and stumble into the adult entertainment industry in Southern California.
1997~2004-The Best Years of My Life-The dream come true Penthouse, the balcony gardens, flying cross-country in style via a business friend's private jet, muscles I've got muscles!?!, selling custom wall and map/guide books for pizza companies, photos of my car collection, my first brand new first-owner car
Nov 6, 2004-Pizza Delivery Nightmare-I delivered pizzas as a pleasant diversion during the winter to earn extra money for Christmas gifts. No good deed goes unpunnished.
Nov 7th~30th 2004-Back on My Feet Any Day Now!-A massive infection, more hospital stays, possible loss of my left foot
Dec 2004~Dec 2006-Losin' My Religion-Diabetes, ankle collapses, selling assets, a friend's suicide, 16 hospital stays, job at headquarters, Dr. "Mind" & my thoughts of suicide, credit card loan sharks, my eyesight fading, social security disability, writing career begins with a review of Brokeback Mountain, I sleep-drive to Indiana in a coma, my father's death
Dec 2nd 2005-Mischief-My former secretary/business assistant gifts me a rescue kitten named Mischief, suddenly I don't feel so alone
2007~May 2008-It's a Good Thing I Was In Mental Therapy-Bankruptcy, BC writers/editors chip in to help with lawyers, congestive heart failure, heart attacks, surgery, my lawyer sues BC... what lawyer?????, GB cuts off my antidepressants cold turkey, eating rat poison on doctor's orders! Hunting*** renegs on offer of loan-they want the car back. without surgery I'm almost blind
June 2008-The Battle of the Sebring-I go full throttle after the bank when they reneg on their promise to let me buy my convertible at the end of my lease, 8 loans approved-8 loans rejected... but I don't give up
July 2008-I WILL NOT GIVE UP-DAMN IT-An approved lease extension... sort of, every exec at the bank knows my name, a new tire for a car I might not get to keep, new plates so I can drive it 17 days? Depression deepens-now I need two shrinks, nightmares, apt. a/c breaks down, OSU has to cut my eye open to save my sight, cat shorts out sound amp on TV, spontaneous bleeding from my shoulders, arm, chest, nose bleeds.
August 2008-I'd like to Withdraw My Sanity Please?-Eye surgery while I'm wide awake, my unpaid zero balance due has been turned over to an automated collection agency threatening the deal on my car, Social Security's error reduces my checks, Medicare/Medicaid fight over my income, baml converts lease into loan, box fan motor smokes, loan papers have wrong odometer on them 44000 vs the real 41000
Sept 2008-Another Heart Attack & Shattered Arm-Medicaid caseworker keeps asking for more paperwork, eye exam reveals nearly perfect vision, car loan not only approved but paid up till November!!! Blood pressure pulmmets, I need a triple bypass on my heart, arm broken in 4 places, GB tries to cut off checks because of missed appointment, Teresa eases my mind by checking in on Mischief while I'm in hospital.
Oct 2008-Another Downward Spiral-Metal rod and 12 screws holding my arm together, heart doctor paints bleak picture, County stops medicaid card, medicare takes over since their fees are being deducted from my checks, discovered watch was shattered in fall, GB forces Dr. Mind to turn over notes of our sessions
Nov 2008-Held in Stasis-Toilet goes on strike, I can't think past the need to do something, then stare all day long.
Dec 2008-One More Straw-Disability stops their checks, Medicaid stops prescription help... why?
January-February 2009-Trusting the surgeon's knife-Trying to sort out the Disability check mess, Do I really want to survive the heart operation? Circling vultures?
March 2009-Home is where the hospital is-Triple bypass heart surgery, rehab facility nightmare, draining the lung infection, emergency surgery, double ulcer, GB forces Work Comp hearing, thoughts of suicide
April 2009-APRIL FOOLS AND THE FAULTY ELECTRIC METER-GB-Pizza Co get an April Fools joke they didn't expect-being bad losers they appeal. I have another date for the knee surgery. If I were superstitious I'd expect a heart attack just before...
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