i'll fight

in recent days it has begun to supremely irk me that the insurance industry in this country has the power it does to reduce human life to simple cost/benefit ratio that determines whether life is worth it or not. insurance companies are not god and they should not get to decide the fate of people like my friend. here is her situation:

I write to you because I know you are a passionate advocate for health care reform. I write to you as a 24-year-old newlywed who has been fighting for her life since childhood. I write to you as a victim of our broken health care system.

I suffer from Type I diabetes, Crohn’s Disease, problems with my thyroid and a severe immune disease. It is this immune disease that will, without further treatment, end my life in only a few years. Common Variable Immune Deficiency (CVID) has left me with a severely depleted and dysfunctional immune system, unable to fight disease and with organs that are rapidly deteriorating as they are under constant attack.

I was diagnosed with CVID in 1999, but my doctors believe I was born with the genetic defect that caused its appearance. Since 2006, I have been battling the most severe complication that has resulted from my CVID – pulmonary dysfunction. Pulmonary dysfunction has left my lung capacity at half of what is normal. Since 2006 I have coughed 1,230 days straight. I have learned to function with a fever. I have mapped out the quickest routes in and out of buildings that don’t require stairs because a single flight of stairs leaves me short of breath and afraid that I may pass out. I have given up on my dream of carrying a child. I have lived my life as a 24-year-old in a 90 year-old body.

But now my immune system has stopped working, and I am left with no other choice but to pursue a stem cell transplant to rebuild my immune system.

Without this transplant the common cold could leave me dead. This transplant would give me an entirely new immune system – the expectation is that it would cure me of CVID and Crohn’s Disease. When my doctor informed me that a transplant would be my only option, my husband and I began planning for the invasive treatment. While we knew it would change our lives dramatically, we thought the tests, the quarantine, the surgery, and the long recovery would eventually allow us to rediscover our lives as normal 20-somethings with our whole lives ahead of us.

But just a month after we started our preparations, I was informed by Regence that they will not cover my transplant. According to Regence, Those who suffer from CVID do not usually see such rapid or progressive decline in health, so transplants are rarely necessary for those with my diagnosis. Regence claims there simply is not enough proof that a transplant will help my adult body. However, the common and most successful treatments for patients with CVID have been tried on me — they have failed.It is the opinion of my immunologist and his world-renowned team of colleagues that transplant is the only option left to save my life.

I have appealed Regence’s decision three times. Now I have few options left. My husband is a police officer and I work for the American Diabetes Association, the $250,000 operation cost is not within our reach. My doctor has been a tireless advocate for me, but our appeals to Regence have fallen on deaf ears. These deaf ears have written my death certificate at the age of 24, a death certificate that could be avoided if it weren’t for corporate greed.

I write because I want my story told. I write to bring attention to this problem. My death certificate may have been written, but it is not signed yet.