Posts tagged ‘money’
Huffington Post: Why I Celebrated Crohn’s & Colitis Awareness Week
In the excitement of Crohn’s & Colitis Awareness Week and the #PurpleChallenge, I completely forgot to share with you my exciting news- I wrote another piece on Crohn’s for HuffingtonPost.com!
In case you missed it, in August, I wrote a piece for the Huffington Post on what it’s like to be a caretaker for someone with Crohn’s Disease. After writing that and the great feedback I got from those who read it, I knew I wanted to write another piece sometime soon. After racking my brain I realized my next topic was right in front of me- why I celebrate Crohn’s & Colitis Awareness Week.
Here’s an excerpt of my post:
Six years ago, I had not heard of Crohn’s disease or ulcerative colitis. I lived in a world where I was blissfully unaware of inflammatory bowel diseases, where the debilitating symptoms didn’t impact my life. Then I met my now-husband Dan, and everything changed.
Dan was diagnosed with Crohn’s disease just two weeks after we started dating in 2007. Now, six years later, we have been through the gamut with the disease. He’s been on three different medications, with one of them making it nearly impossible for him to function because of severe fatigue. Now, instead of taking oral medication, Dan receives an IV infusion every six weeks at the doctor’s office. He’s had three different gastroenterologists. He’s been hospitalized for a post-colonoscopy infection and an intestinal blockage. Most recently, he had part of his small intestines removed in order to treat the disease.
Check out the full post here.
Introspective Tuesday
I’m feeling introspective today more so than usual. I was playing around on Facebook when a new blog post popped up in my news feed from a high school friend’s blog, Before and Afro. Today’s entry title – MAJOR LIFE UPDATE. Between the wording and the all caps, I was intrigued to see what she was announcing. (Note: her past blog entries have been about her adventures as a white girl rocking an Afro wig, it’s pretty awesome).
So I logged onto her blog to read the new entry to find that she quit her job to figure out what she wants to do with her life and blog full-time.
To say that I am jealous is an understatement.
Money Matters
Anyone with a disease knows just how expensive it is to live with a chronic illness. The medications, doctors appointments, surgeries, emergency room visits, and everything in between- it all adds up over time. In fact, I just went back through our records and since we got married in 2009, give or take a bit, we have spent over $4,000 out of pocket on Crohn’s related expenses.
I feel unbelievably lucky that Dan and I have health insurance because of the high medical costs associated with Crohn’s Disease. Every six weeks, Dan goes to his doctor’s office to get his Remicade infusion. So every six weeks, we pay a Remicade copay. We also pay for parking at his doctor’s office, wear and tear on the car (its a 60 mile round trip from our house to his doctor and back), gas, copay for check ups every four to six months, and for other small procedures periodically (bone density scans, colonoscopies, CT scans, etc.).
Caring for Crohn's & UC 