Prayers for Ma-ke Part 2

Moderators Note: This is a continuation of the Prayers for Ma-ke thread. Please continue the discussion here.

[b]I’ve split off the fundraising section into it’s own thread…Check it out [url=http://tw.forumosa.com/t/fundraising-for-ma-ke-and-family/32217/1

Mark has gone in for a small surgery to do some stitching repair, and will be pretty out of it tonight for anyone thinking of visiting.

We’ll be up to see you tomorrow bud…You hang in there.

MJB

PS: Our little gathering Saturday night has generated another 11,000NT from the River pub and her employees…You guys rock! :sunglasses:

How’s he doing now? Last I heard was a big step a few days ago, reaching his arm up to his mouth.

Mark remains in my thoughts daily, and I’m glad to hear of the successful fundraisers.

[quote=“Chris”]How’s he doing now? Last I heard was a big step a few days ago, reaching his arm up to his mouth.

Mark remains in my thoughts daily, and I’m glad to hear of the successful fundraisers.[/quote]

There have been some improvements and a minor setback. The good news is that Mark has been opening his eyes and following people’s movements somewhat. The bad news is that Mark had to undergo a minor surgery to redo some stitches in his head. Don’t know the details regarding this, but the point is that Mark remains vunerable to infection, so even something as minor as this needs to be monitered closely.

Still moving forward, but it’s slow going…The family leaves on Thursday, lets hope he gives them a nice send-off by waking up and saying hi… :slight_smile:

One thing about the fundraiser on Saturday night that I really enjoyed was Getting Rachel and her Mom out of the daily vigil and into a venue that not only was relaxing, but was in celebration of Mark. We did a lot more than raise money that night.

Marks Mom and Sister have been a pillar of strength in handling whatever Mark has thrown at them so far. It’s exhausting to be exposed to this day in a day out, but they continue along, talking to him, urging him to respond, treating every small step as a positive sign.

They could use some help. You don’t have to be shy about visiting the hospital, even if you don’t know Mark that well. The emotional support you can provide to his family, even if only for 10 minutes will go a long way.

FYI, Mark has been moved to the second floor blue building ICU. It’s all the way at the back of the hospital around the corner from the main parking lot.

Thanks once again for everyones continued support,

MJB

Hope he gets better soon, but the family leaving does not really sound like a very good thing. They surely do have their reasons, though. I would get him out of Taiwan asap and into proper care. Got my own share of experience with Taiwanese doctors (incl. those who have studied overseas mind you).

I here you, but the family has their own lives to lead, bills to pay. You can’t blame them for returning, I think what they’ve been able to acheive while they were here was pretty amazing in itself.

As for returning home to proper health care, (the US) it’s simply out of the question. He doesn’t have insurance, and the fundraising we’ve done so far wouldn’t pay for more than a couple of days in ICU back home.

I’m heading up later if anyone here cares to meet me there…More when I get back.

MJB

Thanks for the updates.

C’mon Mark!!

Mark’s plight has made me look at my insurance coverage and I’ll be meeting with an insurance agent this weekend. Unfortunately, most of us (including myself) are only covered under the National Health Insurance plan and that won’t pay for a lot of what Mark will face. For example, it will pay for his recooperation in a hospital room with five other patients (he’ll need to come up with money for a room with fewer). It will not pay for much of the physical therapy (rehabilitation) he’ll need. And it certainly won’t help with the family expenses i.e. rent, food. Finally, it won’t pay for someone to help with taking care of him in the hospital - a role his wife, sister and parents have probably been sharing.

We are a long way from home and perhaps this is a good chance for us to look at our coverage.

[quote]Unfortunately, most of us (including myself) are only covered under the National Health Insurance plan[/quote] That’s extremely risky if you’re here for any length of time. I pay about 15 percent of my income for various types of insurance, some of it invested by the insurance company in mutual funds as a hedge toward retirement. I get accident coverage, missing work coverage, separate cancer coverage and something else I can’t recall, in addition to NT$4,000 per day hospital coverage for up to six months, not including medication and tests wich are covered seperately.
I’ve complained to the wife about this on numerous occasions, until Mark’s tragic accident. I am not complaining now.

Insurance is a GREAT safety net. My wife was in the ER a year or so back with a bad case of food poisoning. She spent a night in the ER. The cost after NHIP and our private insurance was 50 US cents. Cents.

She had a private room in the hospital for a week. It cost us less than 5000NT$.

Get the insurance. You never know.

[quote=“sandman”][quote]Unfortunately, most of us (including myself) are only covered under the National Health Insurance plan[/quote] That’s extremely risky if you’re here for any length of time. I pay about 15 percent of my income for various types of insurance, some of it invested by the insurance company in mutual funds as a hedge toward retirement. I get accident coverage, missing work coverage, separate cancer coverage and something else I can’t recall, in addition to NT$4,000 per day hospital coverage for up to six months, not including medication and tests wich are covered seperately.
I’ve complained to the wife about this on numerous occasions, until Mark’s tragic accident. I am not complaining now.[/quote]

It’s good you shared this. It’s important information for people who are planning to stay for a period of time should know. It would be good if you could share more knowledge, like how one would go about getting this sort of thing. And how it works.

[quote=“Namahottie”][quote=“sandman”][quote]Unfortunately, most of us (including myself) are only covered under the National Health Insurance plan[/quote] That’s extremely risky if you’re here for any length of time. I pay about 15 percent of my income for various types of insurance, some of it invested by the insurance company in mutual funds as a hedge toward retirement. I get accident coverage, missing work coverage, separate cancer coverage and something else I can’t recall, in addition to NT$4,000 per day hospital coverage for up to six months, not including medication and tests wich are covered seperately.
I’ve complained to the wife about this on numerous occasions, until Mark’s tragic accident. I am not complaining now.[/quote]

It’s good you shared this. It’s important information for people who are planning to stay for a period of time should know. It would be good if you could share more knowledge, like how one would go about getting this sort of thing. And how it works.[/quote]

Most of us get married and then our wife’s friends beat the door down to sell us everything, including insurance. :unamused:

[quote=“MJB”]I’m heading up later if anyone here cares to meet me there…More when I get back.
MJB[/quote]

Heading up there Tomorrow (Wednesday) for the 2pm visit if anyone needs a ride from Nankan I’ll pick you up.

[quote=“jdsmith”][quote=“Namahottie”][quote=“sandman”][quote]Unfortunately, most of us (including myself) are only covered under the National Health Insurance plan[/quote] That’s extremely risky if you’re here for any length of time. I pay about 15 percent of my income for various types of insurance, some of it invested by the insurance company in mutual funds as a hedge toward retirement. I get accident coverage, missing work coverage, separate cancer coverage and something else I can’t recall, in addition to NT$4,000 per day hospital coverage for up to six months, not including medication and tests wich are covered seperately.
I’ve complained to the wife about this on numerous occasions, until Mark’s tragic accident. I am not complaining now.[/quote]

It’s good you shared this. It’s important information for people who are planning to stay for a period of time should know. It would be good if you could share more knowledge, like how one would go about getting this sort of thing. And how it works.[/quote]

Most of us get married and then our wife’s friends beat the door down to sell us everything, including insurance. :unamused:[/quote]
You too, huh? :laughing:
Seriously, this is a very serious issue, and it’s a real shame it’s taken a tragedy like this to bring it home.

[quote=“Namahottie”][quote=“sandman”][quote]Unfortunately, most of us (including myself) are only covered under the National Health Insurance plan[/quote] That’s extremely risky if you’re here for any length of time. I pay about 15 percent of my income for various types of insurance, some of it invested by the insurance company in mutual funds as a hedge toward retirement. I get accident coverage, missing work coverage, separate cancer coverage and something else I can’t recall, in addition to NT$4,000 per day hospital coverage for up to six months, not including medication and tests wich are covered seperately.
I’ve complained to the wife about this on numerous occasions, until Mark’s tragic accident. I am not complaining now.[/quote]

It’s good you shared this. It’s important information for people who are planning to stay for a period of time should know. It would be good if you could share more knowledge, like how one would go about getting this sort of thing. And how it works.[/quote]

I’m with Nama, I’d like to know this too. Got any friends that want to sell to a girl in Kaohsiung? I don’t what exactly it would be called, but I’d like enough protection to stay in the hospital for a couple of months if necessary, have rehabilitation, and, if worse comes to worse, fly my body back to the U.S.

I’m presuming MJB will split these posts off as I guess they might be regarded as off-topic, or at least getting away from the thrust of the thread, but you don’t need a friend or acquaintance to sell you insurance. Trust me, there are many companies who’ll be only too keen to take your money.
Our principal insurer happens to be ING Georgia and they seem to have been pretty good over the past decade or so. Aetna is another one. There are loads.

No, I don’t think I will…Ma-ke would have obviously been much better off had he taken a supplementary insurance plan, but as many others have stated, it’s just not something you really think about when covered by NHI. I grumble yearly when I get socked for a large bill that hopefully I won’t justify the expense of for many years to come, but it’s nice to know that if something does happen it’s there.

Update as Wookie and I are just back from the hospital.

According to the Nurses and Mark’s family, he’s had his eyes open for most of the day. When we got there he was asleep, but during the middle of the visit, he started to have a strained look on his face, then his arms clenched and his eyes popped open. It’s the first time I’ve seen this…We were talking to him at the time (telling him about all the hot women at his fundraiser :blush: ) and this happened.

It could have been some phlegm blocking the breathing tube, but I’d like to think it was because he knew we were around.

He looks better…but he does have pneumonia, which the doctors have finally confirmed after suspecting it for awhile. Sometime tomorrow he’ll have the breathing tube out, and a tracheostomy performed.

Mark’s Mom and Sister are leaving Thursday morning, so if you’d like to meet them and see Mark, tomorrow would be a very good time. Prototw has mentioned going up for the 2pm visit, and I might be up again tomorrow night.

MJB

I’m telling you. He’s fighting as hard as he can. He might not be able to express himself yet, but…

if that’s not proof that he’s putting all his energy into telling people he wants to survive, I don’t know what is. He’s focusing his brain and his energy on opening his eyes for you all. He wants to make it.

MaKe is a fighter and I have a feeling that even though the road is going to be hard, he’s going to conquer it much sooner than anyone will ever expect. Because he truly wants to.

Either that or he had wind. :wink:

MJB -
Sometimes when the brain has sustained a traumatic injury, these patients have difficulty regulating various things such as muscle tone, body temperature, sweating, blood pressure and heart rate. Could be he was “storming.” Do a google search for “sympathetic storming” OR “autonomic dysfunction syndrome” AND “traumatic brain injury.”

I have been reading this thread, and sending my best wishes Mark’s way. I hope he is able to recover from his coma. I have seen people do it, and it is remarkable. It’s a very very difficult recovery process, and he’ll need even more support once he’s discharged from the hospital. Good luck to him, and to all of you who are in Taiwan, and pulling for him.

Bodo

Or maybe he was just trying to find the right muscle to open his eyes.