Helping Chez with Medical Bills

In 2020, Chez started complaining of headaches when he would get home from work, but we always shrugged it off as it being the long hours or the introduction of new smells and chemicals from the factory. He would supplement ibuprofen and Tylenol with sleep and caffeine, and it always seemed to be enough to get him through. It wouldn’t be until June of 2021, when we were moving to a new rental home in the area in hopes of expanding our young family again, that these supplements were no longer working. He continued to make connections between his symptoms and his job, the move, the lack of sleep, etc.

On Sunday, June 27, 2021, Chez slept for over 18 hours that day and when he would open his eyes, he was almost in tears. For me, this was absolutely terrifying because in the entire time we have been together, he had only ever been sick one time before in 2018. Other than that, he was a very healthy man who worked out, ate right, and took care of himself and his family. We immediately rushed him to the hospital to get some answers to what was going on, and they determined by his appearance and the major heat wave in the valley that he was suffering from heat exhaustion. They gave him fluids and some medication for the pain before sending us on our way under the veil that he would be getting better. Over the next few days, I went out and got all different kinds of sports drinks and different remedies that they had suggested for getting him back in working order, but nothing was working. By Tuesday, June 30th, he was still not feeling better but he was trying to muscle through the pain and get through the day for my son and I, which included going to work on Wednesday, so I made him an appointment with his primary care doctor. That Thursday, July 1st, we went in to see the doctor, who also agreed with the ER about the heat exhaustion but to be sure the doctor decided to run a few blood tests and take him off work for the weekend. Chez slept from 4:30pm that day until 2pm the following day without moving a muscle, he would open his eyes if I would bug him for 20 minutes straight for a few seconds. By 3:30pm on Friday, July 2nd, he begged me to take him back to the hospital. He just couldn’t stand the pain anymore and sleep wasn’t helping anymore. So back to the ER we went under the direction of the on-call physician at his primary’s office for a lumbar puncture for possible meningitis. Once we were admitted to the ER, the overseeing physician on staff decided to run more tests including blood, urine, and CatScan of the head and brain. About 20 minutes later, the attendant came to us to tell us that unfortunately, they had discovered the issue with the CT. Chez had a 3cm mass tumor with a surrounding edema and a midline shift. In order for Chez to receive the best possible care for the condition, he needed to be transported by the critical care team to the only neuroscience unit in Reno at Renown Regional Medical Center. Unfortunately, unlike the hospital we were currently in, Renown had recently ended their contract with our health insurance, United Healthcare, so it would be charged as an out-of-network care. The critical care team assured us that since he required a high level of care that the insurance would make an exception for the circumstances. This was incorrect, we have received a bill for the transfer and the admission at the toll of $5,100. Chez was admitted into their neuroscience unit for further assessment and testing of the mass because the images at Northern Nevada Medical Center were found to be blurry due to the edema. That night, he was taken to MRI where it was found that the mass was 3cm round, considered asymmetrical, mass in the frontal temporal lobe of the brain with an edema, but the shift was actually 8cm to the right and caused massive brain swelling. The headaches had been signs of the mass, but something had caused the brain to recently swell around it. He was released from the hospital later that afternoon on a 30 day supply of steroids to reduce the swelling.

Since being released on July 3rd, Chez has been off work as he is not able to do his job in the Quality department. His GP has him off until September 12, 2021, in hopes that the swelling will reduce and it will be determined if it can safely be removed, as he is incapable of doing his job. During the day, he suffers from bouts of dizziness, confusion, catatonic states, petit mal seizures, memory loss, and mood swings. While we have noted that some of these things can be linked as side effects to the medication, there are some that are new and only explainable by the mass. This includes forgetting our son’s name at times and massive headaches that leave him bedridden. His life has changed so much, he is not able to come up with the words to write this. We are currently awaiting appointments with the neurosurgeon to find out what our next steps are going to be.

-Haley