Drowning in an ocean of medical debt

Hello, my name is Tim Gray, and I sincerely appreciate you taking the time to read my story. Unfortunately life has dealt me some unexpected blows when it comes to my health. Somone told me that now is the time for me to swallow my pride and ask for help. I am a very prideful and private person, I don’t like asking people for help, which can be one of my downfalls. I unfortunately I have a lot of medical debt due to a number of unexpected health issues. Just before the pandemic I had major lower back surgery, the most extreme yet, the third in a series of five. This surgery was to correct issues caused by two prior back surgeries, the result of a serious fall. I was at a point where I was in extreme pain all the time and could barely walk. The surgery did help me be able to walk again but gradually over time the pain started to come back with more intensity. I was having difficulty walking again. I had developed severe, chronic lower back pain. In 2022 I was accepted into a clinical trial program for a new neuro-stimulator, a device that was not on the market yet. At the end of 2022 I was given a temporary stimulator to see if it would reduce my pain; it went well so it was then decided the permanent implant would be done. During this time, in one of my CT scans they incidentally discovered a tumor on my thyroid, biopsies were done, and the test came back benign. This year a follow-up ultrasound was done, and another smaller tumor was discovered, they did more biopsies, and the results were that I had cancer. They then sent the tissue samples off for further testing to find out exactly what this cancer was. I had to wait almost a month and a half to get the results, which normally would take three weeks but there was some mix up and I had to get more biopsies done. They didn’t use the same lab this time and within about two weeks they called me and to my surprise the additional test showed that it was not cancer after all, I guess you can say I got a miracle. Also during the past couple of years I’ve also been experiencing pain in my ribs and around to my back, on my right side. I had a severe painful attack one evening, which was so bad it brought me to my knees. My doctor had me go through four hours of testing to try and figure out what is going on, only after all that they were still unable to diagnose me. Just recently I woke up in severe pain at night and ended up in the hospital, to my surprise it was a kidney stone; I’ve never had one before. My doctor hoped that my side pain and back pain had been because of kidney stone but the pain has continued long after the passing of the stone. More than likely, I will have to have an MRI done. Also, during this time, if things weren't bad enough, I had emergency dental work done and to top it off I was in a car accident. As you can imagine the amount of debt this has all put on me is more than I care to think about. I sat down the other night and started to add up all that I've paid so far and all that I will be paying and just had to stop it was just so overwhelming. I've not shared with anyone that with my third back surgery I had to clear out my bank account, I started building that all back up again and then I was hit with the next two surgeries and the cancer scare. Just to give you an example of how crazy things can get when you have so much medical stuff going on, providers want money up front before they will do some procedures these days. Little did I know when I went in for one of my surgeries, the morning I checked in they pulled a surprise on me and wanted four thousand dollars up front. I negotiated that down to giving them a thousand, which I had to put on my credit card; unfortunately, I had to rely on credit cards to cover a lot of my medical debt. I had hoped to retire in a couple of years, but this has all set me back so that’s up in the air right now. There is another surgery pending out there but it’s on hold due to what I will have to pay out of pocket. Admittedly this has caused me a lot of sleepless nights, I’ve worried about whether or not I could keep my home in the long term, somehow, I need to get myself back on my feet. I've gotten to the point where I hate going to get my mail or opening up my email because there always seems to be another bill that I owe. I'm trying to get back on my feet again so I can plan for a better future and fingers crossed retirement. Any money received will be used to pay towards my medical debt. Like I said at the beginning it’s hard to put myself out there and set my pride aside, if you feel inclined to help me out in some way, I will be so ever grateful.