Getting Your Disability Before Starting Interferon Treatment

The main point of this blog is to raise awareness of Heptatitis C through my own treatment experience,  and the best resources I can find, and just plain telling people things I wish someone, including my doctors would have told me.

I have found the following links to be exceptionally helpful for assistance with medical expenses and even financial aid to those who qualify or just have an unexpected expense they need help with.
*I am also still working on a more comprehensive guide to helping people with questions such as:
How do I qualify for Social Security Disability?
Is SSDI benefit amount dependent upon my household's total income?

And accurate information through research and personal experience these topics

• How to apply for Social Security benefits
• Denied Social Security
• Social Security Disability Tips
• Social Security Programs
• Social Security attorneys, including such facts as the State of Virginia Bar Association is the only one in the US to recognize Social Security Attorneys and what that means to you in your city and state.

I am still working on compiling this information so please check back and thank you for your patience. I have personally "slugged it out" with Social Security and have been awarded lifetime benefits and lump sum cash awards.
If you are unable to work because of a condition you are not sure your condition qualifies you for disability, think again.
The process is much faster than when I had to do it in 1996. You could have your first check within 6 months if you know what to do! Find out what the lawyers won't tell you without a commitment.

In the meantime:

Please see the full site The American Liver Foundation .

The PDF attachment I received contained many resources. The most generally helpful for financial assistance was "Modest Needs", explained below in an excerpt from the document I received. Like myself, The American Liver Foundation is dedicated to getting the word out about this epidemic which is silently reaching catastrophic proportions in the US and abroad.

What kinds of assistance can Modest Needs offer me/my family?

Modest Needs offers three main types of grants: Self-Sufficiency Grants, Back-to-Work Grants, and Independent Living Grants. The grants we offer at Modest Needs come with no strings attached and do not ever have to be repaid.
To learn more about the types of grants we offer at Modest Needs, please read about our Grant Types and Eligibility Requirements.

Does Modest Needs charge a fee to apply for assistance?

No. For about a year, from October 2009 to October 2010, we did charge a fully-refundable $7.50 application fee as a means of controlling against fraudulent applications for assistance. However, we determined that this fee did not control against fraud as well as the other safeguards we had in place, resulted in enormous bookkeeping headaches, and caused legitimate applicants to question Modest Needs' own legitimacy.
For these reasons, we discontinued our application fee in October 2010. Going forward, Modest Needs will never again charge an application fee of any kind to our applicants, ever.

Chronic Hepatitis C Treatment Monitoring Algorithm

This link is vital to anyone even considering treatment for Hepatitis C. I don't care about hits as much as I care about people who need this info finding it. I'll try to put up a copy of Mayo Clinic's PDF, which is actually a flow chart showing all possible paths. Friends, I am in what is delightfully referred to as "End Stage Cirrhosis". Don't let this happen to you! Get tested. If positive, get treated! Yes, treatment sucks but it's temporary. Much better than having your life cut short. It's not because of lack of diligence on my part that I am where I am at on this chart. 2 failed attempts! I started trying when I was still in stage 1! Are you sensing the urgency??? It can start to progress at anytime without warning and let me repeat this fact. FAT DRIVES THE PROGRESSION OF THIS DISEASE. And if you have genotype 3, like me, you are especially vulnerable to this undesirable obstacle to treatment being effective. So if you are over weight, like I was, and have this disease, you may be in serious danger and still not have a single symptom. I apologize for any undue alarm to people who are not ill. But I can sleep at night knowing that I shouted it from the roof tops. God has a funny way of getting the ones who need to read this to see it. Now there's an internet marketing strategy that I'll bet the "gurus" hadn't counted on. Peace out! Talk soon, ( yes, I am still trying to get the courage up to do a video upload). But I know I will overcome this fear after my first shot.