She Crowdfunded Money For Weight Loss Surgery
I read an interesting interview of Kami Perritt published in Women’s Health
Kami Perritt said Ever since I can remember, I’ve always been overweight or obese. I was the biggest kid in kindergarten, and in middle school kids started calling me Kamu, like Shamu the whale. The last time I flew without a seatbelt extender was when I was 20, and today I’m 40. I actually own different seatbelt extenders for different airlines so that I don’t have to ask a flight attendant for one. It’s horribly embarrassing.
After I met my now husband, about 10 years ago, I gained even more weight — going from 309 pounds to 381 pounds by the time we married. He’s a much smaller man with a much higher metabolism, and I started eating just as he did.
My Weight Loss Journey
On my 39th birthday in December 2015, I had my wakeup call. I was walking through the airport with my friend, and I had to stop and take breaks because I couldn’t breathe. When I got back, I saw my doctor about weight-loss surgery. My BMI was 69, and I weighed 381 pounds at 5’2”. I also found out I had developed Type 2 diabetes.
I’d gone on diets before and was always been able to drop up to 60 pounds pretty easily, but I could never get past that mark. And it always came back. Since I’d never had any health problems before, I’d never considered weight-loss surgery. But now, things were more serious.
My primary-care physician was against it. She wanted me to lose the weight through diet and exercise, but I knew I needed more. Lap-band surgery seemed to be the least drastic surgical procedure, even though I wouldn’t lose weight as quickly as with gastric bypass. But I didn’t need to be thin, I just needed to be healthy.
Putting My Money Where My Mouth Is
When I applied for the surgery in February 2016, my insurance required me to visit a dietitian four times over 90 days, get blood work, and have an electrocardiogram test. After my paperwork was approved, my surgery was finally scheduled for September 1, 2016. Nowhere along the way did my insurance or surgical center tell me how much the procedure would cost.
On August 26, just five days before the operation, the clinic called to tell me that I owed $3,178.82 upfront before I could have the surgery.
As a patient advocate, every day at work I help people understand their health insurance, including how to enroll, their benefits, and making claims and appeals. But when it came to my own weight-loss surgery, I was shocked.
I knew I was going to have some out of pocket cost, but I didn’t realize how much it would be. I had great insurance, I’d already met my $1,000 deductible, and I knew that my out of pocket max was $3,000. But I didn’t know that maximum did not apply to bariatric surgery. I also thought that, like most hospitals, the facility where I was having my surgery would have a payment plan, but it did not.
I called my husband and started crying because I thought I would have to cancel the surgery. Then I called our credit card company to see if I could get a credit line increase, and I applied for five different credit cards. I got one with a $500 limit and a 24.99 percent APR. I was rejected by the four others. We had just purchased a house, so our savings were gone. Plus, our credit cards were maxed out from buying new appliances — and our parents weren’t in a place to help us.
Looking back, I realize how important it is to check with your insurer as well as your surgical facility at the beginning of the process to find out what your out of pocket costs are. I shouldn’t have assumed that bariatric surgery had the same insurance benefits as other surgeries.
Signing Up For GoFundMe
I had pretty much given up on the idea of getting the surgery when a nurse practitioner I work with said everyone at work would like to help raise money for my surgery. She suggested I start a GoFundMe campaign.
Initially, I set it up so friends and family could donate. I wanted to be transparent, so they could see exactly how much I’d raised. Everyone was absolutely supportive and positive. And if there were people who didn’t approve, they were decent enough to keep it to themselves.
At first, I was just hoping to get enough to cover half of what I owed because I could pool my credit cards to pay for the rest of it. But at a friend’s suggestion, I asked for the full amount, and I got all of it: $3,270 raised by 46 people in just three days. It still overwhelms me. Although the donations were mostly from family and friends, a few people I don’t even know actually donated.
Getting the Surgery
My goal is to get down to 200 pounds by the end of 2017. Between my first weight-loss surgery consultation in February 2016 and September 2016, I lost about 40 pounds, weighing in at 336 pounds. Since the surgery, I’ve lost another 40 pounds, and I weigh 299 pounds.
To read the rest of the interview please visit here.
