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Crohn's Disease

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Madisyn Witfield Living with a chronic disease for anyone is a difficult way to live your life. Most of us worry about simple bills like phone, cable, and internet. People living with a chronic disease often have to worry about high health insurance premiums, or take the chance of not having insurance at all. We do not choose to be born with an illness, deformity, or a disease, but there are companies and organizations out there that are willing to help. You do not need to struggle in life with medical bills that burden you from obtaining a higher education.
Background
Crohn’s Disease (CD) affects around 700,000 Americans (CCFA 2012). It doesn’t discriminate between male or female, and is found evenly in both sexes. It is a chronic inflammatory condition of the digestive tract, and can occur anywhere in the digestive tract, from the mouth on down. It mainly affects the lower part of the small intestine. There is currently no cure for CD, but there are many medical treatments and surgical options available to relieve symptoms. CD can occur at any age, but is most prevalent in adolescent to young adults from age 13-35 (CCFA 2012). General symptoms that are associated with Crohn’s Disease are fever, loss of appetite, weight loss, fatigue, night sweats, and in women, loss of normal menstrual cycle. CD is a chronic disease, which means that people afflicted with this type of disease experience periods of flare-ups followed by periods of remission, where they might not experience any difficulties from the disease. Because it is a chronic disease, CD patients will in some point of their life, be required to have surgery. This is because the intestinal tract thickens and scars after each flare-up. Surgery is needed when the scarring is so great that the digestive tract can no long function properly. Madisyn Witfield has been battling CD for many years, and with the help of her father’s insurance, has been able to get the proper medications, and surgical procedures done when needed. Now that she is off to college, she is no longer covered under her father’s insurance. Her diet has also suffered greatly, which only increases the flare ups. She decided that since she did not have enough money to pay for doctor visits, she would try and keep it under control herself. The continuation of her decision to not be treated for the kidney stones ended Maddy in the hospital for a few days. She then decided to take a break from college, move home, in hopes to recover. She also has to deal with how to break this to her parents. Her dad lost his job, and his mom works part time to try and make ends meet, while raising Maddy’s siblings.
Key Problems
Crohn’s Disease requires that you maintain a healthy diet, and try not to put too much stress on your body on an everyday occurrence. CD also requires you to make regular doctor visits for checkups. This allows doctors to keep an eye on the disease, and helps determine what actions are necessary for the patient to continue to live as healthy as they can. Having more remission time than flare-ups is crucial in reducing the scarring to your digestive tract. A typical college lifestyle is not conducive to either of those requirements to limit CD flare-ups. While attending graduate school, Maddy also has to work a full time job as a waitress to sustain her lifestyle. The medication that she had been taking before college also helps to maintain a healthy digestive tract for people with CD. She didn’t have the time or money to see a doctor to renew, or get new medications, so she just went without them. She then started feeling feverish, lower back pain, and fatigue. She was well aware that these symptoms were directly related to kidney stones. Having them before, she assumed that they would just pass through her system as they had done before. However, she didn’t realize that she was severely malnourished and dehydrated. This combination allowed the kidney stones to grow, and created an infection. It took one of her friends noticing that she was getting worse, to bring her to the emergency room. Maddy knew down deep what was happening, and that she should have sought help sooner. Now she has to worry about how much her 5 day trip to the hospital will cost her, along with having to pay for the surgery to get the kidney stones removed, and fighting the infection. This major leave of absence from her school and work could cost her even more. She could lose her job, and the schooling that she has been paying for, will have to be redone if she was in the middle of classes when this all happened to her.
Alternatives
Maddy could have had health insurance to pay for most of her doctor visits and surgeries that she would need to have done to keep CD under control. While this seems like it might be the best solution to the problem, it is not. Insurance premiums for people with preexisting conditions can be as high as $500-$ 700 a month! She wouldn’t be able to work full time, and be able to afford to continue her education. Contacting her family throughout college about her struggles might have helped out too. She could have asked her family for money here or there so that she could visit her doctor when needed. Her family might not have had the extra money to help her out. Her father is currently unemployed, and her mother only has a part time job, so they are struggling to make ends meet. Closely monitoring her diet, workload of classes, and waitressing could have prevented so many flare-ups, giving her more remissive time to heal between the flare-ups. When you are going to school full time, and working full time, you don’t have the luxury of always eating right. As a waitress, your mood often is determined by the people you are serving, and how busy things are. If she works at a popular or busy restaurant, she might have a choice on the level of stress she is exposed to on a daily basis.

Proposed Solution
Before she started graduate school, Maddy should have looked into colleges that give scholarships or special financial aid to people who have CD. This would alleviate the cost of schooling, and allow her to use that money towards paying for insurance, and going to regular doctor visits. There are various organizations that are set up to help people afflicted with CD. They can help pay, or even pay for all procedures and testing required. Pharmaceutical companies pay for treatments if you use their drug. Some also on top of that will pay the person taking the drug if it is in research and development. The combination of these two solutions would take a lot of the burden off Maddy, as well as with her problem of asking her parents for financial support. She could then try to live a normal life without worry of having to burden 100% of the cost to live with Crohn’s Disease.

References
What is Crohn's Disease. (2012). Retrieved from http://www.ccfa.org/what-are-crohns-and- colitis/what-is-crohns-disease/

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