In the mid 2000's my mom became ill. All of her life she suffered from severe asthma. She was always in and out of the hospital and trying different medications to no avail. One medication would lead to another medication with the attempt to alleviate the side effect that the other medication caused. Finally her primary doctor suggested that she see a pulmonologist. The pulmonologists suggest an injection called Xolair. The injection was very expensive and needed to be given twice a month. My moms insurance did not want to cover such an expensive medication, although this was what was needed to give my mom some relief. My sister and I had to come up with a plan to make sure our mom got what she needed. We reach out to the manufacturer of Xolair to see if they had an assistance program and sure enough they did, but it still would take a lot work on our end. We had to gather several pieces of documentation: verification of her pension, mortgage payments, utility payments, and other medications. We finally got her approved and she started receiving the injections with a very modest co pay.
We then encountered the same obstacle when my mom had to start insulin injections. My mom was diagnosed with diabetes and a contributing factor of this new found ailment was a direct cause from all of the serious she had previously taken trying to get relief with her asthma. The insulin pen was $100.00 a month! On a fixed income trying to pay other bills, maintain her household, and just trying to live she could not afford this. Once again my sister and I went into action on a search for answers, resulting in the manufacturer giving my mom a discount card for her insulin pen.
As my moms health continued to decline over the years we found ourselves in need of more assistance. We needed someone to sit with our mom throughout the day. Private pay for a home health care worker can be so expensive and we did not have Medicare or Medicaid to fall back on. Here we were once again with a huge obstacle. After some research we found a program called Money Follows the People. This program would pay for someone to sit with my mom 6 hours a day for 5 days a week. They believed in keeping an individual in their community rather than a facility.
Over the years we reflected on some happen times my mom would have and realized that it was always when she was around kids. She would drop my kids off at their private school and stay there over half the day. I would often joke about her spending her days there and not being on payroll. She would say I just enjoy being there around the kids. The private school ranged from daycare age to twelfth grade, so she was around all ages. Eventually she was added to payroll and could be paid for being there all day. After this she was invited to work in an in home daycare and would not miss a day. Days she was not feeling her best she still went to take care of the kids. She got so much pleasure out of being around the kids. We learned upon other illnesses that being around kids and playing games with them helped my mom in so many ways and just kept her going.
We want to help other families in our community to make sure no one goes through these ordeals alone. We do not want the elderly to have to worry and have to make a decision to pay a light bill or pick up their medication. When kids can put a smile on the elderly face and give them something to look forward to, we want to make sure that everyone has that opportunity. We are focusing on bridging the gap with these two generations!
