Love and Support for Denise Child

Denise is a loved, valued, and respected colleague and friend to so many. She has dedicated her life to selflessly serving school children for the past 33 years in our community. Unfortunately, Denise is fighting a battle that has resulted in a devastating gap in her ability to receive critical caregiving services in her home. We would love to provide her with enough funds to afford care until her case goes to court.

Denise became a quadriplegic when she was 15 years old due to a car accident. Since then she has been in a wheelchair and only has partial use of her arms. After graduating from high school she received her masters degree as a speech and language pathologist and has been working full time with children in the Cedar Falls schools ever since. She gave birth to her very own son 27 years ago, the absolute joy of her life! However she faced another hurdle when her husband left her and their son when he was just 5 years old. From that point on Denise raised him entirely on her own. This young man went on to serve our country for 4 years in the Marine Corps and is now an electrical lineman apprentice.

Denise requires a caregiver each morning to get showered, dressed, and up in her chair and at night to be put back to bed. Once up in her wheelchair, Denise is independent. Unfortunately Denise had to retire at the beginning of 2022 due to health-related issues. However she prepared for retirement by having taken out a long-term care insurance policy over 19 years ago to pay for caregivers once she was retired and her workplace would no longer be covering these critical services. This long-term care insurance was offered through her employer with NO underwriting, meaning she couldn’t be denied! Since she was applying during an open enrollment period, the insurance company told her that any pre-existing conditions would not cause her claims to be denied in the future since she applied during this specific period of time. It was the answer to her prayers because she knew years ago that if she continued to work she would never qualify for Medicaid which is based upon income and is the only insurance that covers daily long-term care services in ones home for people like Denise.

However Denise was horrified when she applied for her long-term care insurance coverage and they denied her claim for the very thing they said she would not be denied for, her pre-existing quadriplegic condition! She has since had to hire a contingency-based lawyer to fight the insurance company for coverage she was promised. It will take 2-3 years before her case will come to trial, but in the meantime she is learned that she now makes too much money to qualify for ANY government caregiving assistance from Medicaid or any waiver programs. Yet her ENTIRE retirement income for one year is less than it costs to pay for an entire year of caregiving services! She fears the insurance company is hoping she will die from not being able to afford care so they will never have to pay a dime before the courts hear her case. Taking care of a quadriplegic isn’t cheap, on the low end it’s about $75,000 a year. She simply can’t pay these kind of bills.

The only option she has been given is to sell her home and van, give that money to the government, and go live in a nursing home. This active vibrant woman is simply not nursing home material! She is only 57, drives her adapted van everywhere, has a very active and full social/family life, attends worship, goes to many community events, attends concerts frequently, and carries out all of her own household duties like getting groceries, paying bills, making and getting to doctor's appointments, watering and caring for her plants and flowers etc. All of the things every normal person does, but for her, these things are only possible once she is up and ready for the day. She was even hoping to be an occasional substitute in the schools because they are so badly needed right now. But having a life of her own wouldn’t even be allowed if living in a nursing home to receive caregiving services paid for by government because that would mean she wasn’t “sick” enough to need a nursing home! She has researched every avenue of potential caregiving assistance in her attempts to get through the next couple of years until she prevails in her lawsuit. But as of now, she is simply at a loss of what to do.

Please share her journey with others, after giving 33 years of service to children so they can be functioning adults and achieve at their highest, Denise deserves the right to remain in her home and possibly even enjoy a little bit of her retirement knowing that she can get out of bed each day. Any offer of support would be greatly appreciated, thank you!