BFSkinner’s been a kossack since May 2008. If you’ve been here a while, you know him. If not, check out his profile page — BFSkinner Profile Page He’s part of a lot of communities, very actively when he was healthier. He’s been with us and we’ve been with him as the Crohn’s got worse and he went from full practice to part-time from his home to unable to work. As he tried different living situations, moved in with family and out again when it didn’t work. We helped him get his cats, his “overlords”, back after one of those moves. We helped him re-home one with another move. We were with him as he applied for and finally received Disability. We’ve been with him in and out of the hospital.
And he’s been with us. He writes regularly — music diaries, film and TV show diaries, get through the night diaries, and unfortunately “in the hospital again” diaries. He’s always ready to read and rec to give a diary more visibility even though he can no longer take part in the various fundraisers and drives. He’s with us. He’s kossack family.
His Crohn’s continues to do what Crohn’s does, including causing painful stones. He has pain in back and flank — like shots last less than a day and opiods work but cause other painful problems — that kind of pain. He’s bunged up his left ankle — even splinted he can’t sleep without pain meds.
He has kidney issues. He saw the urologist today. Urologist thinks the kidney problems may cause the back pain but more concerned about another issue — ordered two tests— Friday’s for bladder function, Monday’s for kidney function. Urologist thinks something’s wrong with his right kidney.
And oh yeah, in one of those hospital stays they managed to knock out some of his upper teeth — then denied it. He couldn’t prove it (why would you take a picture of your mouth before going to the hospital?) so now he is dealing with more depression, self-image/self-worth issues, and feelings of helplessness. He had 5 teeth removed a few weeks ago and will have to have the other 6 removed before he can get the denture/upper plate.
He’s on Medicare. But the System fails him. Medicare does not pay for dental. It only pays 20% of hospital visits, of which he’s had 5 in 9 months not counting ER only visits. He’s on Social Security Disability. Another System fail — Disability isn’t enough to live on without a roommate much less pay for the dental and hospital expenses Medicare doesn’t.
The System isn’t strong enough or complete enough to cover BFSkinner’s needs even though he did all the right things before he had to depend on it. That isn’t right, of course. But saying that doesn’t put one cent towards his dental bills or his hospital bills right now.
We’re his community, his kossack family. Time to help him out. Right now he needs $5,000, mostly to deal with the teeth. His gofundme is www.gofundme.com/… and his PayPal is houstonbfskinner at netscape dot net.
If you can help with funding, bless you. If you can help get The Word out, bless you. If you can rec, tip, and reblog to other communties, bless you. And thank you.