In the spring, Jean was referred to the Schuylkill Alliance for Health Care Access, a nonprofit that helps the uninsured in Schuylkill County. The Alliance cobbled together a plan for her.
She went to see a primary-care physician for $13.50 a visit. He accepted the Medicaid rate; the alliance paid half and Jean paid half.
Same deal for bloodwork - it cost her only $12.
Alliance staffers applied on her behalf to pharmaceutical programs that provide free drugs to the poor.
Jean waited.
April. May. June. July.
Jean's creatinine level climbed from .9 to 1.6.
"She was very much gambling," said Spry, the kidney expert.
But what could she do?
Finally, in late July, "great, great news," she said. Novartis, a drug company, had sent a three-month supply of Myfortic.
"They will carry me for one year, free of charge," she said. "That is the best news I could have."
A few weeks later, another call. She got Rapamune through a program from CVS-Caremark.
Jean resumed her normal dosage. By September, her creatinine count fell back to .9.
"I feel great," she said this week, at home enjoying the grandchild of her late daughter, Tammy.
"At 1.6, rejection was starting to occur," Spry said. "But she caught it by getting back on her medicines.
"I've seen it when they up the dose back to normal and it doesn't respond," he added. "The person goes on to lose the kidney. Sounds like she might have been lucky."
The government paid for Jean Hawk's kidney transplant and most of her anti-rejection drugs. But her drug coverage lapsed after three years. Hawk quit her job just before her company laid off workers, thinking she would get Social Security disability. But she didn't. For months, she economized by cutting pills in half and risked destroying her kidney. Finally a local nonprofit got her free drugs through two programs. Her case shows some of the ways people can lose health insurance before they turn 65.
