Grandchildren… travel adventures…great books to read… unexpected kindness from strangers. Growing into our late life years can be an ever-emerging kalidescope of new and delightful experiences.
It’s also true, however, that growing older can confront us with a variety of medical issues. Often these diagnoses can lead to new physical and functional challenges, which can, in turn, lead to daunting financial peril.
For people with an evolving disability, medically prescribed adaptive gear might include a variety of “mobility machines,” architectural adaptations, or medical equipment. Our physician may recommend a wheelchair or scooter to help us get around easier. Or a wheelchair-accessible van to drive. These and other adaptive aids can cost thousands of dollars. Even if what we need to maintain our mobility is medically necessary to stay healthy and well, often the message we recieve from our health insurance companies is, “sorry, you’re on your own.” Isolated. By ourselves. Not valued. Left to quietly decline and eventually disappear? Ugh!
How can this be? We live in a very wealthy country–“one nation under God”. Americans who need important medical equipment, should not be abandoned; forced to suffer and subsist.
But wait! There is help. There is hope. In unexpected places.
Having personally experienced the angst of needing a new adapted van and not having the required $80,000 in my budget, I was recently forced to think outside of my own financial box. After soul searching and doing the research, a group of friends and I teamed up to seek help.
We discovered that crowdfunding was the answer. After 11 months of fundraising, we are delighted to announce our success. I now have a wonderful wheelchair accessible van that will keep me on the road for years to come. Our team witnessed many little and large miracles and blessings along the way and came to know more deeply that reaching out for help is nothing to be ashamed of. In fact, we became more inclined to believe that the word HELP can stand for Hello Eternal Loving Presence!
In an effort to encourage others to reach out for financial support, a couple of us soon embraced a fresh inspiration. We wanted to do the hard research work and diligently dug deep into the internet to create a 22-page list of national resources that will help provide necessary dollars for medical and adaptive equipment to private individuals. 
It’s titled, A Polio Survivor’s Guide: Funding Resources For Medical and Adaptive Equipment. Now published on Post-Polio Health International’s website (see link below), the list is available and ready to be used by not only polio survivors, but anyone who has a disability.
Dr. Frederick M. Maynard, well-known post-polio specialist, further presents his perspective on the value of this new resource guide by way of his written introduction below.
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Living well with a physical disability in the United States is an expensive proposition. Most medical insurance coverage is very limited, sometimes nonexistent, for expenses needed to acquire necessary medical equipment, even ventilators for people who are unable to breathe adequately or wheelchairs for people unable to walk. “Medically Necessary” criteria for coverage are not uniform between plans, co-pays or coverage limitations can be burdensome and spending limitations often lead to poor quality items. Almost no insurance plans contribute to costs for architectural modifications of homes, vehicles, clothing or adaptive equipment that could increase one’s independence, productivity and/or quality of life. Consequently, many US citizens with physical impairments feel like they pay an “American surtax on disability”.
This resource guide has been assembled to assist Americans with disabilities, particularly polio survivors with significant motor and breathing impairments, to find financial assistance for the costs of obtaining desired medical equipment and/or environmental adaptive modifications that are otherwise not affordable to them. Post-Polio Health International (PHI) has a long history as an organization committed to helping polio survivors live independently despite severe post-polio disabilities and their late effects. It has always encouraged polio survivors to take matters into their own hands and to assume personal responsibility for finding solutions to any barriers they may face to achieve the meaningful lifestyle they desire.
It is in this spirit that a team of investigators, coordinated by Sunny Roller, has produced this compendium of possible resources available to assist people with disabilities obtain the adaptive medical and rehabilitative equipment and environmental modifications they determine that they need. Users will still have a lot of work to do in “selling their needs” to potential funding sources and identifying those local or regional funding sources mostly likely to be responsive to their needs.
As a physician specialist in Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation with over 40 years of experience in helping polio survivors, I acknowledge their frustrations in dealing with our American healthcare system because of its apparent lack of support for people with disabilities in achieving their optimal potential for independence and quality of life. I have also witnessed the incredible persistence, creativity and intelligence of polio survivors in coming up with effective unique solutions for overcoming their barriers. I sincerely hope and expect this resource guide to be of assistance to many people with disabilities who are otherwise limited in achieving their personal goals because of financial barriers to acquiring needed equipment and environmental modifications.
Frederick M Maynard, MD, FAAPMR Member, Post-Polio Health International Board of Directors; Chair, Medical Advisory Committee
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It’$ here!
Tap into it!
Tell your friends!
https://www.polioplace.org/sites/default/files/files/PHIFundsDirectory2020.pdf
Such great news. Now you can go and go and go. You worked so hard and proud of you. As each birthday comes around I find that I take a lot of time to do anything. Walking in Minnesota in the winter is such a challenge. Thank goodness my husband is always a helping, holding arm to get where I want and feel safe getting there. I would just stay home if it was a chance that i would fall on the ice. Spring is just 26 days away and I can’t wait. Days are longer and love living in our smaller home. god bless you.
Sunny, you just keep rolling along with wonderful, loving help for anyone who is physically challenged or has trouble with mobility. You have turned your own difficulties into ever more positive outcomes. Thanks for all that you do for others and I could not be more thrilled that your Groves classmates helped to make your new van possible. Sending a big hug and a whole lot of love!