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I have severe venous insufficiency in both of my legs in addition to late stage 2 lymphedema, because of three factors. First of all I'm very tall and heavy (though only for the past couple years have I been as morbidly obese as I am now... BECAUSE of these other problems!), I was born with incredibly tiny and deep veins, and I chose to be a casino table game dealer for 10 years, standing rooted to one spot for 6 hours or more per day.
On top of that, over this past couple of years I have developed severe stiffness and range of motion problems in both of my arms and shoulders (also from dealing) and the pain associated with this is so bad that I can no longer reach for things on shelves above chest level, or in the back of the refrigerator, or even right on my table at arm's length because of crippling pain.
So yes, I was hospitalized FOUR TIMES at a cost of over $30,000 each time, and also spent a great deal of time in a couple of long-term nursing facilities while they pumped me full of IV antibiotics over and over again at the cost of my stomach and kidneys. But, when I've expressed the need for anything at all away from the hospital, like a large, comfortable chair to support both my weight and height (6'3", high 400s presently and was higher a couple years ago), or extra supplies like bandages or gauze, or really good diabetic shoes... you name it, they fucking turned me down EVERY TIME or just hemmed and hawed about it and then let it drop. The ONLY thing they did bother to send me at my house was - get this! - a $600 bathroom scale with a 550 lb. capacity, and this was even after I told them that I could get one even better through several medical supply places with an even larger capacity (not that I intend to ever need it) and a larger platform to stand on (which would actually help me) for 1/3 the cost.
Where I'm going with this long rant, I suppose, is that for the cost of all this time in the hospital and then just tossing me out on my ear with literally no support once I was kinda sorta healed up, but referrals to all kinds of specialists and for all kinds of medications each with another co-pay which before we knew it could total into the hundreds every month... they COULD have paid for a lot of physical therapy and other stuff to help me get better on my own. Instead, I've been in almost too much pain to move more than just a little bit for going on three years now, losing at most a pound a month just on diet and feeling like shit warmed over. My wife is wonderful and tries as hard as she can to help me, but if I were in more qualified hands I'd be in an entirely better situation.
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