HollyAlonzo – Never Giving Up Hope

I’ve been reading Yvonne Foong’s blog. She is able to raise funds for her medical issues with no problems. She says she needs help and she gets it. It might take a little time but it’s amazing how many people actually support her.

Yvonne is a sweet person and I have a lot of respect for her.  But I can’t help feeling jealous.  I reached out for help last year.  I assumed it would be easy enough because I have so many friends and family and they could help by spreading the word as well. 

I was wrong.  It is no where near easy.  A year later I still only have raised approximately $10,000.  Here in the United States, that is not all that much.  As many people as there are in the world, just $1.  I needed $30,000.  Shouldn’t be too hard to find 30,000 people out of billions in the world, right?

Well it is hard.  Today’s age is skeptical.  A lot of people would not buy raffle tickets because they thought it was a scam.  Others did not donate because they said, “I’m sure others will help and you’ll get enough.”  They left it up to others, and when everyone is waiting on someone else to help, nothing gets done. 

People may think I didn’t try and that is why I didn’t receive enough help.  But I did.  I wrote letters to Oprah, Senators, State Representatives, the Governor, even the presidential candidates.  I didn’t get one single response from any of these places except the governor’s office but there was nothing they could do.

The fact is, if you don’t fit into their plan they don’t care.  Only when they can use you to boost themselves will they help you. 

I am not being rude or negative toward anyone here; I am just stating how I have tried and I do not know how Yvonne gets the kind of support she does.  I do know that Asians are more generous.  I had many Asians donate their dollar to me.  Only a few select Americans donated to me that were strangers.  I did receiver quite a bit of donations from Edward’s family, friends of mine, and some of their relatives.  My mom did put a lot into the raffles and many people at her work supported that.  So there are people that did try to help me.  A friend donated her picture to be raffled, another helped me with a design.  I can not list things that everyone who has helped me has done, but there have been those who helped either by donating or donating there time and services.  Yvonne even donating some t-shirts to me, but only a couple of people bought any.  Granted I didn’t have the correct size for a few that wanted to buy one.

I was just hoping for help and support from everyone.  I mean all people are scared of being deafblind.  If you ask any sighted person what they are afraid of the most, most will say losing their vision.  If you ask any blind person what would be the worst that could happen to them, most of them would say losing their hearing.  Since I am in such a grave situation here I thought that there would be a ton of people willing to help even out of sympathy.

I am finally able to get the surgery I need.  It will not be with the doctor I originally hoped for.  But because of this contact with Dr. Friedman, I found out that Dr. McElveen is very experienced.  But if I could go to Rick Friedman right now, I would.  He is the most caring man in the medical profession in my opinion.  No doctor has ever done for me what he did.  I have had a lot of bad luck with doctors, and I’ve gotten no explanations from them on why something is the way it is, or what happened.  Dr. Friedman was willing to help me out of his heart, talk through my fears with me and clear up any that were unnecessary, and willing to go out on a limb for me and try to get as much help for me as possible from his clinic and the hospital.  I love that man and as I said, if I could I would go next week and get the surgery with him.  But I do not have all of the funds.  I would have to have it all before I went in for surgery at St. Vensants in order to pay the hospital because they are waving so much.

In Raleigh the situation is a little different.  I have this state’s Medicaid so they are working with me a bit more.  If I would have lived in California and had mediCal I don’t believe there would have been any problems, but I don’t live there and I don’t have MediCal.  The cost of the ABI is still in question, but the doctors and hospital are willing to work with me in any way.

The doctor told me that I would get my ABI but Medicaid told me that they will not pay, I do not know if I’ll be able to get it.  I will find out during my pre-op appointment.  At that time I’m hoping that even if they tell me Medicaid won’t pay, they’ll will still put it in and allow me to make smaller installments that I can afford for once the donation money runs out, unless people continue to help me get the funds.  But with or without the ABI, I need this surgery to get pressure off of the brainstem. 

I just want to say a special thanks to all who have supported me, even by spreading the world.  It means a lot to me.  I’m just jealous or disappointed that others get so much help but I couldn’t. 

This whole article is my opinion only, and I never meant to hurt or offend anyone.  If I have, I’m sorry.  That was not my intention.