Help This Family Fight An Eating Disorder

 

 

 

This is my friend, Amanda Moreno Duke's, teenage daughter. She was hospitalized at MUSC Shawn Jenkins for a month in January of 2021 with a severe eating disorder; she almost died at that time. It was terrifying. After that first month, the medical team found it necessary to transfer her to a residential eating disorder facility. Due to COVID restrictions, Amanda, a single mother, and a teacher was unable to see her daughter for 106 days. It was a gut-wrenching time. It was not until her daughter was stepped down and placed into a partial hospitalization that Amanda was able to be reunited with her daughter in Atlanta.

 

Unfortunately, Amanda's daughter lapsed soon thereafter. After another month or so at Children's in Atlanta, her daughter's medical team thought it would be best for Amanda to drive her daughter to a well-respected eating disorder facility in Dallas, Texas that allowed visitation and family involvement, so Amanda stayed despite FMLA and Catastrophic leave having been exhausted. Amanda and her daughter have now been in Dallas for eight weeks. However, Amanda's daughter is still very far from recovery.

 

Money has run out, and health insurance benefits will too unless Amanda participates in COBRA. Amanda has been told by her school district that COBRA will cost well over $1000/month. Because Amanda is still under contract and the district is not willing to sever that contract, she's unable to teach either virtually or in-person in a different district. Even if she could, family meetings and therapy at the facility require her participation for 20 hours per week. Soon her daughter will step down to partial hospitalization, which will then demand even more of Amanda's time. Without continued insurance, Amanda's daughter will have to stop treatment. Given her slow recovery, odds are that she could become a statistic: one of those with anorexia nervosa who die every single hour