After a two year journey and constant medical issues, I have come to a place that I can no longer avoid asking for financial help from strangers. I lost all functional vision two years ago and was diagnosed initially with corneal ulcers on both of my eyes.
I had relocated to Atlanta to find work and was staying in a cheap hotel when I had some sort of attack which paralyzed the right side of my face. I went to an ER and they found no evidence of a stroke. There was suspension that it could have been caused from environmental issues like black mold. We cleaned the room and did find mold and we were able to use commercial products to eliminate the mold, with no help from the hotel. They blamed me for the leaking in their AC unit.
A few days later, my eyes started to become blurry and my vision became very cloudy and blurry. I went to the ER and I was given eye drops. A week later I could not see out of my right eye and had very limited vision in my left eye. At this point, I broke down and called my mother in Tennessee, we had been estranged, but she immediately jumped to action and got me in to see a corneal specialist at Emory University.
The initial assessment was corneal ulcers and I referred to a specialist. After several weeks of waiting to see the specialist, I could not work and had to rely on my Mother to pay for my hotel bill and food. When I finally saw the specialist, he recommended corneal transplants but we would not be able to proceed until the ulcerations had been properly treated with medication... more eye drops. Then, I lost my health coverage that I had obtained in Tennessee through the marketplace.
Again, my mother kicked into action and sought out insurance assistance in Georgia. I was denied for everything through the state. We also applied for Social Security Disability and SSI. That process took months to be addressed and in the end I was denied SSI because my Mother's payment of my hotel charges and food were viewed as an income, she was paying over $2000 a month for the hotel and food, which was above their income limits for SSI. I did receive SSI-Disability but it is only $540 a month.
Over the course of these two years, my mother has depleted her retirement account and maxed all of her credit cards to pay for my care. We are now day to day with being able to pay for my hotel room and food. There are days when all I eat are bananas and instant potatoes. My mother is retired on a limited income from Social Security and has no way to provide any longer. I've been homeless in the past due to terrible decisions I made but I can't imagine being homeless and blind in Atlanta.
After several appeals, I have been able to regain health coverage from Georgia Pathways, which is a reduced benefit form of Medicare. I have been back to the corneal specialist and they want to proceed with the transplants. I will need to undergo immunosuppressant treatments and expect to have the first surgery by October. The good news is that I will have Medicare beginning on October 1, 2026. The bad news is that I will still have medical bills and living expenses to cover until then. Additionally, it will be 2-3 months of recovery time where I will not be able to work.
My ultimate goal is to be able to move to an apartment on the MARTA line and get back to working and taking care of myself. I'd like to find a job that pays enough to begin to repay my mother for the thousands of dollars she has given up from, what should be, a comfortable retirement for her.
I am embarrassed and ashamed that I have to ask for help, but I am terrified of becoming homeless. Any help that I receive will be managed by my mother and applied directly to my medical care and housing/food. She is a retired educator and one of the most caring people you'd ever want to know. I am lucky that she's forgiven me for all my past problems that caused our estrangement.
