View Full Version : Living Artificially
I wanted to give it 48 hours before I said anything but my cousin-in-law received a total artificial heart on Monday. This will buy time while waiting for a donor heart to be available. She was completely fine before Thanksgiving. Went in for a new irregular heart beat and had an ablation procedure which led to this. Pretty crazy stuff. She's only 46. Two huge tubes come out of her chest and hook up to the machine that pumps her heart. It's very loud. 16 lb Batterie pack only last about 2 hours so this huge air pump will be a part of her life until a heart is available. The family is so thankful for this opportunity to live though it is a different kind of living at 46 than you would expect, someone has to be with her 24/7. She'll remain in the hospital and then move to a rehab center. The longest someone has lived with an artificial heart is 1,512 days, with a transplanted donor heart is 33 years (so far). The first heart transplant was in '67 which lasted 18 days. We've come a long way. About 5,000 heart transplants take place each year worldwide.
Williamsmith
1-17-19, 11:10am
I am glad to have this information. My brother is beginning his journey down the same path. I am concerned for what this means for him, his wife, my mother and me. I guess I will find out.
catherine
1-17-19, 11:15am
Wow.. a whole new world of medicine. I'm so happy that this solution is available to your family, FloatOn!
I do a lot of market research in interventional cardiology, and it is completely amazing what can be done these days.
Williamsmith, sorry that your brother is headed this direction as well. We're all pretty stunned at how quickly this happened and even more quickly it went from "you should consider a transplant as an option to we're doing an artificial heart tomorrow". Here is what the pump sounds like https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i_kn8NAdo1Q
Williamsmith
1-17-19, 11:35am
Thank you for that also. One part of the concern is his healthcare. He doesn’t know how long his employer is going to continue keeping him enrolled. If he gets dropped he can’t afford the cobra. It might mean the difference between life or death. I don’t know. Lots of unknowns.
Wishing the best for your cousin-in-law. American medical treatment shines in shock-trauma and physical procedures like transplantation. She may very well live to see hearts grown and implanted.
Teacher Terry
1-17-19, 1:49pm
I have a friend that was a super healthy exercise nut and he survived a widow maker heart attack. He had a heart transplant 6 years ago and is doing well. My friends 19 yo daughter died a few hours after getting a liver transplant. You just never know.
Agree with everyone that modern medical technology is awe-inspiring, and I'm sending my best wishes for a successful transplant to happen soon.
Thank you for that also. One part of the concern is his healthcare. He doesn’t know how long his employer is going to continue keeping him enrolled. If he gets dropped he can’t afford the cobra. It might mean the difference between life or death. I don’t know. Lots of unknowns.
My Cambodian coworker's father just had heart surgery thanks to you and me the American taxpayer. He isn't even a permanent resident. This is the latest of his and his wife's nonstop procedures on practically every part of their bodies. If you can get on Medicaid as an indigent you have no worries.
I do understand the anti-immigrant frustrations of Trump's base.
He doesn’t know how long his employer is going to continue keeping him enrolled. If he gets dropped he can’t afford the cobra. It might mean the difference between life or death. I don’t know. Lots of unknowns.
De-couple insurance from employment
Universal healthcare
Don't make me mad. That's ridiculous.
Universal healthcare for citizens first. Pay for it by removing non-citizens from Medicaid, SNAP, and other government programs. Then if you have extra money you can add them back on.
Teacher Terry
1-18-19, 6:52pm
So green card holders can just die if they get a serious illness?
They can get healthcare in their country of origin. I don't go to Cambodia, not even apply for residency because I'm not sure I like the country enough, and expect the Cambodians to fund nonstop medical procedures for myself and my signifcant other. The guy is 60 and not working or paying taxes but I will be lucky if I can retire at 70 because I will have to buy Medigap, I don't get everything for free off another country.
Teacher Terry
1-18-19, 11:43pm
I know when people come on a green card the person sponsoring them has to sign a form saying they won’t receive government aid for 10 years. Every country has rules for immigrants.
As I have explained before, people with green cards and other non-citizens are still allowed to receive numerous government benefits provided the supposed majority of their support aka housing is not government provided. This is different than in years past. When my mother became a citizen she had to sign she would never take one penny of government assistance. And she never has. This is what Trump has talked about getting back to.
Think about the heyday of American immigration from the nineteenth through the early twentieth century. Immigrants got no government assistance.
Think about the heyday of American immigration from the nineteenth through the early twentieth century. Immigrants got no government assistance.
Neither did natural-born citizens for the most part until the New Deal and beyond.
Even tourists in countries with universal health care get free--or nearly free--coverage if they're injured or fall ill, from what I've read.
iris lilies
1-19-19, 11:04am
Even tourists in countries with universal health care get free--or nearly free--coverage if they're injured or fall ill, from what I've read.
Only in life threatening situations. If they can patch you up and get you in a plane, they do that. And if you are in any of the formerly Eastern Block countries you had better have many hundreds/few thousand American dollars to pass around to your caretakers.
Teacher Terry
1-19-19, 11:12am
Medicare for all would help with all this immigrant envy. Plus the government wastes so much money all the time yet people focus on small potatoes to get their panties in a twist.
Medicare for all would help with all this immigrant envy. Plus the government wastes so much money all the time yet people focus on small potatoes to get their panties in a twist.
I still have the immigrant envy. Now Mr. Just Off the Boat who has never paid a penny in taxes is applying for SSI because of his bad heart. I know several disabled US citizens who cannot get approved.
Now Mr. Just Off the Boat who has never paid a penny in taxes is applying for SSI because of his bad heart. I know several disabled US citizens who cannot get approved.
What makes you believe he'll get approved for SSI right away?
I am bothered that he can even apply. He gave all his productive years to another country, now he is here to get on the gravy train. He may get it because cardiologists like to suggest SSI to their indigent patients and are good at filling out the paperwork in such a way as to get Social Security to approve it. I knew a guy who gave himself congestive heart failure smoking crack. When he couldn't pay for his medical appointments the doctor told him to get on SSI and Medicaid. He did and continued working but off the books, using his SSI as extra money for street drugs. He and many other people who have had heart surgery can and do work. But the loophole for expedited processing is the cardiologist (or oncologist etc) certifies this as a terminal case. Mr. Terminal Crackhead is still above ground 6 years after he qualified for benefits. He is a citizen, so there are also citizens abusing the system.
Yet many citizens with severe mental health issues cannot get approved because there no tests like ones cardiologists run to prove they have a disorder. Also I have known a couple citizens with leg issues so infected they cannot walk (one was confined to the hospital with a machine to drain the leg attached to it 24/7, the other had 8 knee and leg surgeries and numerous plates and was also bedridden). They were turned down also.
We should take care of our own first, and certain diseases should not have priority and other ones be stigmatized. The disparity in granting benefits is one reason we have so many mentally ill homeless citizens. We also could process citizen applications more quickly and not have such a backlog if we didn't let noncitizens apply. So much for their sponsor will support them.
Not to argue any of the points you stated; just curious that, since so many people are advised that SSDI will be denied the first time they apply, how you were sure this guy would be okayed when so many others are not.
As for other illnesses not being stigmatized, agreed. But mental health has been riding the caboose on that for centuries. I can understand that SSDI needs to screen for people who have no alternative to disability, but it should not require highly-paid legal help to make one's case successfully. Lots of things broken there.
Teacher Terry
2-4-19, 8:41pm
If you have more than 2k in assets you don’t qualify for SSI. You must have little or no income. It takes many people 2 years to get SSDI unless they are terminal. Many lawyers will take a case for free and then take a third of the back pay if they won. Many are not capable of doing the paperwork correctly and can’t keep up with continuing paperwork, etc. For our clients that truly deserved it we would refer them if they couldn’t handle it themselves and many could not especially with MI. SSI usually is between 300-500/month.
The idea that our crappy medical "care" system is a "gravy train" is a cruel, unfunny joke.
It needs a complete overhaul, getting greed/profit out of the mix.
We would be able to cover everyone's needs and save money simultaneously. The system currently in place is about twice as costly as any other developed country's.
It's a gravy train compared to a Third World country like Cambodia.
I know someone (not a citizen but a Dreamer) who 15 years ago was getting over $800 a month in SSI, but some of that was a state supplement to the Federal benefit, plus Medicaid, SNAP, subsidized housing, etc. He applied for citizenship but was denied because he would be a public charge which was kind of stupid to me inasmuch as he was a public charge anyways his entire adult life. He was from Haiti and believe me he was very grateful for the medical care here. More people envy our system and want in than the other way around.
Teacher Terry
2-5-19, 6:04pm
I have never seen SSI higher than 500.
In Massachusetts it is called SSP, State Supplement Plan.
Teacher Terry
2-5-19, 6:42pm
So the state supplement the federal benefits. I have never heard of that
ApatheticNoMore
2-5-19, 10:24pm
So the state supplement the federal benefits. I have never heard of that
I don't know if it's supplemental but there is state disability in CA as well, SDI, and we are paying for it, 1% tax on income for that.
catherine
2-10-19, 10:27am
In the government handout envy department, it drives DH CRAZY that my brother has received the benefits he has from the VA. My brother was in the Army for 6 months 40 years ago. They actually REMOVED him, with an HONORABLE discharge (which also drives DH crazy) due to alcoholism. Has anyone ever heard of someone being released from the service because they were alcoholics?
Anyway, those 6 months have probably given him more lives than a cat. He has bounced from VA program to program for substance abuse. He got Hep C and they gave him Harvoni ($1000 a pill), and he's now cured. They have also given him an apartment, complete with furnishings for no more than a couple of hundred bucks out of his pocket (and his pocket is filled with money from the government's SSDI funds.)
Meanwhile, DH served in the Marines during the Vietnam era, and because of our household income, he has not qualified for any/many benefits. I know that when he dies he can get some burial benefits. We've never taken advantage of the GI bill for housing, because of the red tape it would have required.
Some might be as angry about my brother's good fortune as my husband, but as a sister, I can only be grateful that he hasn't had to die homeless against the wall of a New York City building on a cold day like my father did.
ApatheticNoMore
2-10-19, 11:19am
Some might be as angry about my brother's good fortune as my husband, but as a sister, I can only be grateful that he hasn't had to die homeless against the wall of a New York City building on a cold day like my father did.
or else you would have tried to give him even more help than you have, making it harder for you to get by. That's always how these things really work.
More immigrant envy: it turns out my coworker can claim her working age, non-citizen parents who choose not to work as dependents on her income taxes. Also, if the father gets approved for Social Security disability that will not count as income for him and she will still be able to claim him.This is legal although they are not permanent residents either, but being sponsored so as to supposedly not be a burden to the taxpayers of this country.
She also told me others in her community who do not work sell their children's SS #s to people who do work so those people can claim the kids as dependents. She is working with them to create phony paper trails (addresses at school, doctor's offices, etc) in case of an audit to cover up the tax fraud, since this is illegal.
Miss Cellaneous
3-15-19, 10:00am
If you have more than 2k in assets you don’t qualify for SSI. You must have little or no income. It takes many people 2 years to get SSDI unless they are terminal. Many lawyers will take a case for free and then take a third of the back pay if they won. Many are not capable of doing the paperwork correctly and can’t keep up with continuing paperwork, etc. For our clients that truly deserved it we would refer them if they couldn’t handle it themselves and many could not especially with MI. SSI usually is between 300-500/month.
My nephew was born disabled. He has never *not* had a disability. Among other things, he has been an incomplete quadriplegic since birth. His parents were advised that he should file for SSI when he turned 18. He was rejected the first time, and got it on the second try. He's been on Medicare (I think that's the right one) for years to help with his home nursing costs, ventilator and wheelchair costs, etc. You'd have thought he'd be a slam dunk for disability, but no.
And my brother said that it was tough--he'd receive a letter in the mail giving him 10 days from the day the letter was mailed to submit certain documents--so in reality, he'd have 5 days to gather up the documents and then drive to a SS office, because there wasn't time to mail them in. And some of this involved getting things from doctors' offices, etc., not just paperwork that they had around the house.
TT and Miss Cellaneous,
I have a younger extended family member who was diagnosed with a chronic mental disease in his teens, and a severe chronic physical illness in his 20s. He is now age 40. And yes, despite both of these uncurable diseases being documented numerous times by medical doctors, he too has been subjected for many years to constant requests for re-filing of his status, and threats to take away his financial support and subsidized group housing.
It is a part-time job for his parent to manage the administrative nightmare that is federal and state aid. And yes, all of this for a few thousand a month and medical care for an obviously chronically disabled person. Even that is not enough and his parent has to supplement this financially. Who will do this after his parent dies?
Teacher Terry
3-15-19, 11:04am
Lainey, they need to appoint a guardian for when they are gone.
SteveinMN
3-15-19, 12:28pm
Lainey, they need to appoint a guardian for when they are gone.
^^^ This. I don't know if it differs by state, but in Minnesota if all of the guardians "leave" (death, their own incapacity, abandonment, etc.), the county appoints a (county social services department) guardian. But that person does not have a mandate to personalize the care the disabled person receives (kind of like the Hippocratic Oath: do no harm but there is no requirement or guarantee that care is optimized for that individual beyond that required by law). I am the co-guardian for the disabled person in our family for that reason -- folks like that need an advocate; someone who can fill out the forms* and push back at "protocol". I am lucky in that DW, as a social worker, can act as a sherpa for us through a process that is designed to intimidate through opacity.
* I know primary care givers (even outside of my family) who rail at filling out the forms annually ("Well, he sure as ^#&% isn't going to get better!") but it serves as a check against the bad eggs out there who want to cheat the system and the masses of taxpayers who have buckets of tar and pitchforks at the ready for whenever social services fraud is not checked.
iris lilies
3-15-19, 1:04pm
More immigrant envy: it turns out my coworker can claim her working age, non-citizen parents who choose not to work as dependents on her income taxes. Also, if the father gets approved for Social Security disability that will not count as income for him and she will still be able to claim him.This is legal although they are not permanent residents either, but being sponsored so as to supposedly not be a burden to the taxpayers of this country.
She also told me others in her community who do not work sell their children's SS #s to people who do work so those people can claim the kids as dependents. She is working with them to create phony paper trails (addresses at school, doctor's offices, etc) in case of an audit to cover up the tax fraud, since this is illegal.
Your coworker is pretty stupid if she is part of the chain of fraud and is yakking about it.
I would probably be considering reporting her behavior so that her little band of thieves would be thwarted.
I reported my crooked ex-lawyer to the IRS Whistleblower's office and they did not do anything.
Years ago I reported an illegal immigrant to what was then INS and they did not do anything.
I used to read those informant reports and unless they had credible concrete information, like from an insider that could be documented, they were usually not very helpful. The best, and funniest one, is the report made by a wife or soon to be ex-wife turning in her husband. Don't think she thought far enough ahead because they filed a joint tax return.
iris lilies
3-16-19, 8:57am
I reported my crooked ex-lawyer to the IRS Whistleblower's office and they did not do anything.
Years ago I reported an illegal immigrant to what was then INS and they did not do anything.
But you can only do your part, you don’t have control over the whole metting out of justice.
I am annoyed by my neighbors who don’t report petty crimes on their property because they say oh the cops won’t do anything anyway and I tell them it is not about your particular crime being solved, it is about building a pattern for a case.It is about charting crimes in our neighborhood for more police coverage. Our overall participation in crime reporting helps our neighborhood.
And like sweetana says, if the report is non specific, there isnt much they can do. But you, jeppy, may not have clearly factual info, so I agree that it may be a waste of your time. You know Your coworker is doing something nefarious but you don’t have concrete facts about it.
Now they are getting free government phones for every member of the family, but they were rejected for Food Stamps until they have been here 5 years.
Poor people have qualified for reduced-price or free phones for decades now, as phone access is necessary for jobs, emergency services, etc.
I have lived without a phone. It is possible.
Teacher Terry
4-3-19, 9:41pm
Dangerous to live without a phone.
I live in the city, not some remote area, which is also the case with the folks I am talking about. Also these people are able bodied but have no intention of learning English or looking for a job, so they do not need a phone for that. The daughter who works has a phone she pays for currently, but would like to ditch it and get one for free that we the taxpayers cover.
Meanwhile while they continue to go for continuous medical procedures for free my citizen dental hygienist tells me how she and her unemployed husband struggle to pay $1400.00 a month in medical premiums and he is reluctant to go to the doctor because of the high out of pocket costs.
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