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Expenses of chronically sick people

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Inspired by an article from themighty.com I decided to write about the expences of chronically sick people in Poland. The situation is quite different from the American, so I think its worth to write, even though the topic was the same. Poland is different. Europe is different. Basically everywhere you have a public health care, better or worse, and, well, for better and worse.

This text doesn’t describe strokies’ expenses, I’m going wider. So:

what affects the wallet of an ill person?

  1. No work – many of chronically sick people do not work or work for a limited time. Or need to take days off  (hours off) to go to plenty of appointments. The loss of income seems to be basically the biggest factor that decreases one’s economic position.
  2. Cost of meds – in Poland they are partly refunded. Not all, not for every disease. So, for example, you can pay like 30% of the price, but on other meds go normal 100%. And, from my experience, these are the most expensive ones. For example my meds for lupus. No refunds, 100% of the price of the most expensive drugs i am taking. Another thing in Poland is that often only older generation drugs are refunded or even available. About availability: i go to Germany to buy one of my lupus drugs. they are simply not allowed to be sold in Poland. But they are way less harmful to me. The choice is quite simple. So each time I need a refill, my parent need to go over 50 km to German pharmacy (I don’t drive). Good that at least that’s the occasion to buy better washing detergents.
  3. Physiotherapy – it can be surprising, how often you need rehabilitation. So many not obvious diseases demand rehabilitation to keep patients in a decent state. Sure, rehabilitation is sometimes refunded. Sometimes. At least in Poland, access to physiotherapy is bad. That means that you pay. If you’re lucky, you pay after using the hours you’re entitled to. If not – you just pay. If you’re in a bad position, you’d just don’t have the physiotherapy at all. That means you are sicker than you should be. You could be healthier. But you’re not.
    At the moment I don’t have any kind of rehabilitation. I can’t afford it and I don’t want to ask my parents for more money.
  4. Seeing doctors – that’s tricky here. In theory, you have access to every kind of specialist for free. And sometimes it’s fairly easy to see them for the first time. for a visit to the office of random (really random, I found one that I didn’t have to wait for months) I waited for less for 2 weeks. But a first visit at the rheumatologist was scheduled in more than… 2 years. Yay! Guess what I did? I paid the same doctor and I went to her after a few months. Huge difference. There are many kinds of specialists that don’t have free spots for months, years ahead. Even when you pay.
  5. Travelling – I live in a big city, so most of medical procedures are here, within a few kilometres, but there are people who need to travel far. and people, who need to travel with a carer. I know one history of a woman who travels more than 500 km with her daughter to have her baclofen pump refilled. For me, it was quite complicated. Strokes happened out of my city, so whole treatment took place out of Szczecin as well. For me, little change, for my parents – huge expenses. Huge.
  6. Equipment, both mobility and adaptive. Again, in Poland, they are partly refunded, but if you want to have something more advanced, you need to pay out of your own pocket. for example, I’ve heard the legends of having the bathrooms adapted for the wheelchair, but I consider them real legends. But on the other hand, the cheapest wheelchair for my grandpa was refunded. Good, that we didn’t need much more.
  7. Higher bills. Do you use more water or electricity? You pay. Simple.
  8. Nursing and caring – Woah, that’s a huge one. especially that the expenses are big, refunds small  (or there are no). Usually, severely sick people here are taken care of family members. So it can limit also their income. But it’s not really only about full time caring. Sometimes sick people need help in cleaning, shopping or going outside with someone who would assist them. Expensive, expensive, hard.

Maybe there are more points, but to tell the truth, these are main. I struggle with some of them (or maybe… my parents do, because its them who pay for most of my medical bills).

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Gallery of the faces: I called. It was marvelous!

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I have a friend who is a fellow strokie. I might have mentioned him before, but I’m no sure. He’s a young French guy who suffered the stroke in Poland.

His stroke caused a big number of problems, such as aphasia, troubles with moving, spasticity… But this guy is determined to get better and gradually improves his health. Moreover, he does good things to the disabled community. He even plans his own blog:)

When we speak on Skype, he seems to be like me. My first impression was like: if I didn’t know, i would have thought that he had stroke problem. Normal boy, maybe looks for English words bit longer than a normal, fluent speaker, but you know stereotypes about French people & English;) my small experience shows that in France it’s easier to find a Polish speaker than English speaker. Anyway;) Continue reading

epilepsy my stroke

Suddenly I’m epileptic. Epilepsy after brain stroke

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img_20161210_135549Well, my trip to Warsaw didn’t go quite as I planned. I went to my beloved doc and I managed to see my beloved friends. I had some troubles buying my falafel. I was too distractd to focus on the menue.

My hemi-paresis and confusion was bigger than usually.

And from one moment I don’t remembr anything. Friends said that I was speaking clearly but without sense. And one moment I lifted my hand up and I was staring at it. Like a Statue of Liberty?

Then i started to turn my body left. And I clamped my jaws. And I fell. Or I was blown down… And I started to shake.

From what I don’t remember my friends reaction was full of panic. Crying and running around. Someone put me in the recovery position. My awaress came back in hospital. Someone told me that they suspect another stroke. I remember crying so much. Word ‚epilepsy’ was used later. When I saw my friends I became calm. I even joked. 😉

My doctors were supercool. Most of nurses and ward nurses also. During next days my epilepsy was confirmed. Now I’m a strokie with pilepsy blem.

We don’t now how it will develop. Maybe drugs will work perfctly and this attack was my last epileptic performance. But it doesn’t have to be one time show. In hospital I met a girl with post-stroke epilepsy who still can’t win her battle. I feel so sorry for her.

In this moment I’d love to deny  rumours that I was running out the topics to write on my blog(s) and that’s why I developed epilepsy. It wasn’t also for fading interest in my person. I don’t invite anyone for medical marihuana just yet.