Published: March 16, 2008 11:13 pm         

Ailing woman struggles to pay bills

TRENT — Facing one tragedy after another, Ruth Baer somehow finds a way to be thankful.

Sitting in a bed with a tall rack of medications behind her, her eyes are bright, but her failing voice tells of her weak body.

Baer, a mother of three, is recovering from a five-organ transplant and is fighting to pay her bills.

“I am just happy to be alive,” Baer said. “I could be angry about a lot of things.”

The 37-year-old could be angry that her house burned to the ground in 2004. But her young son, Evan, saved their lives. He woke her about 1 a.m., saying he heard a voice and they had to get out. An electrical fire had been creeping through the walls and steadily destroying her house.

Now, she could lose her home again as she tries to juggle medical bills and pay for life-sustaining prescriptions. A copayment on just one of her 19 daily prescriptions costs more than $500 a month.

She could be bitter that her gastric bypass surgery did not make her better, but rather led to more problems.

The new problems were not diagnosed until she passed out while driving.

That led to more intensive surgery – transplants to replace organs that were failing. But she is grateful for new organs: An esophagus, stomach, small intestine, large intestine and pancreas.

“We just try to make it each day at a time,” Baer said.

‘More than nerves’

In 2000, Baer underwent gastric bypass surgery. She said she weighed 298 pounds at the time and became ill after surgery. Doctors thought it was a staph infection and performed four or five operations.

She said her health continued to deteriorate until she was told she would die.

“I wanted to come home,” Baer said.

She did, and she lived.

Every day, Baer said, she would vomit. Her weight dropped to 98 pounds. She carried bags with her so she could drive down the highway, vomit and keep driving without even slowing down.

In the fall of 2004, the home where she lived with her children – Curtis Heining, Evan Heining and Corrina – burned. Her mother and nephew, her only family other than her kids, both passed away shortly after the fire. Then she lost her job.

Doctors said stress was affecting her health, stress that made her vomit daily.

“They kept telling me, ‘It’s just nerves,’ ” she said.

One day, Baer woke up in a cornfield. She had vomited until she blacked out while driving.

“That was enough,” Baer said. “I knew it was more than nerves.”

An endoscopic exam finally identified the real problem: There were complications from her gastric bypass surgery, she said. Food was rotting inside her until her body expelled it, and the constant vomiting had damaged other organs.

Baer said her attorney advised her against discussing specifics of her gastric bypass.

Her first reconstructive surgery, in 2006, was followed by several more in 2007. She had feeding tubes in her nose and sides for about six months.

‘A true lifesaver’

Problems seemed to trail her, but then she found a friend.

As Baer was having photos of her children developed at a local store, another customer began shouting at her for driving an electric cart.

Another shopper, the Rev. Barry Ritenour, intervened.

Ritenour, pastor of Bethany-St. John’s United Methodist Church, befriended the ailing mother. He and others at the church held a soup sale and raised $1,900 for materials to build a ramp at her home through a program with Lowe’s called Ramps R Us.

After it was built, Baer gathered on the ramp with the volunteer laborers and friends to pray for organs.

The next day, she got the call that the organs were available.

She underwent a 19-hour surgery in late October. Her transplant surgeon, Dr. Kareen Abu-Elmagd, was unavailable for comment.

Baer stayed in the hospital until the end of December. Even now, her caregiver, Tammy Bailey, drives Baer to Pittsburgh three times a week for follow-up care.

Bailey, a longtime friend, has agreed to stay with Baer 24 hours a day.

“She would do the same for me,” Bailey said, adding that Ritenour’s kindness has been a guiding light for Baer.

“He has been a true lifesaver,” Bailey said. “He raises her spirits.”

Ritenour has started a trust fund to help Baer, the Ruth Baer Medical Fund at Somerset Trust, 151 W. Main St. in Somerset.

Baer is on disability, but her mortgage payment is a dollar less than her monthly income.

“We are making it on credit cards and prayers,” she said.

Bailey and Baer also are doing their best to come up with fundraisers.

The women sold baked goods before the organ transplant, but Baer is too weak now. A local man who wanted to remain anonymous donated half a hog to be raffled, and the two women are trying to find venues to sell tickets.

“I was always such a strong person,” Baer said. “Other people don’t see me as being sick.”

‘Complicated surgeries’

With gastric bypass and other bariatric surgeries growing in popularity, a national expert said it is imperative that patients considering surgery research prospective surgeons before signing up. In 2007, 205,000 morbidly obese Americans were expected to undergo bariatric surgery, according to the American Society for Metabolic & Bariatric Surgery.

“These are complicated surgeries,” said Dr. Scott Shikora, chief of bariatric surgery at Tufts Medical Center in Boston and president elect of the American Society for Metabolic & Bariatric Surgery.

“If you do enough homework, you usually can find out who is really good in your area,” Shikora said, adding that he could not comment specifically on Baer’s case.

One of the most important factors in choosing a surgeon is to check credentials, Shikora advised. Next, he said, patients should check with medical doctors and others who have had surgery.

Risks are involved with any major surgery. A 2004 Journal of American Medicine edition showed a 0.5-percent mortality rate for gastric bypass patients.

     

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