Mom Goes Blind So Her Daughters Can See (VIDEO)

Mom Goes Blind So Her Daughters Can See (VIDEO)
By Julian Hattem
HuffingtonPost
First Posted: 09-28-09 02:15 PM | Updated: 09-28-09 05:22 PM


As part of the Huffington Post's efforts to bear witness to the effects of the current economic environment on ordinary Americans, we're rounding up some of the most compelling stories reported by local news organizations around the country.

Monique Zimmerman-Stein has been nearly blind for the last two years from Stickler syndrome, a rare genetic disorder. She recently decided to forego her own treatment to save funds to treat her two daughters, who also suffer from the condition, reports Lane DeGregory of the St. Petersburg Times.

The family is covered under husband Gary's Blue Cross/Blue Shield plan, but that coverage only pays for 80 percent of medical expenses.

She will no longer get treatment to preserve that last slice of light. The injections that might help cost $380 after insurance, and she needs one every six weeks. She could be spending that money on her daughters' care.

If forgoing treatment might help them see, she said, "That's a choice any mom would make."
The expensive care has already forced the family out of their home, which was foreclosed, and forced them to sell their furniture and to cash in their life insurance.

Tampabay.com put together an excellent video to accompany the story:




Continue reading here about stories of other families who face financial hardship because of inadequate health insurance: how a teen's family faces foreclosure because of daughter's brainstem tumor; how a man was arrested because he could not pay medical bills for his diabetes.