HawkOwl, which part of "there is no assistance for me" is it that you are having trouble with? I can tell you that I've been turned down for assistance on the basis that I am not a Christian from several local Christian organizations. Waiting lists and "eligibility" requirements that are little short of ludicrous have made me ineligible for many others (one program counted my STUDENT LOANS as INCOME, thereby making me ineligible for assistance from them).

I can tell you from FIRST HAND KNOWLEDGE that my home IS being considered a "liquid asset" and WILL be disposed of at auction, will I, nill I, so your "understanding" clearly falls short of reality. Please do not post to this thread again unless you have something meaningful to say about recovery (or lack thereof) from CHF. My gosh!

As for bankruptcy settlement, there can be no settlement as I have no income, have not had any significant income for years, and am unlikely to have any income in the foreseeable future. Legal services doesn't handle bankruptcies, at least not where I'm at (there are too many of them), and there's a huge waiting list besides. My property, being extremely rural, will not bring that much at auction. It won't cover my medical bills accrued thus far, let alone the 80k in student loan debt that cannot be discharged under any circumstances other than actual payment. No lawyer would touch this with a ten foot pole - there is no money to pay him and there isn't going to BE any money to pay him. I TRIED to get a job and at least pay SOMETHING on these bills to stop my home being seized, but due to the CHF I am unable to work. I had to quit. I couldn't even manage to get back and forth to the bus, let alone ride my bike in on days/at times when the bus isn't running.

Also bankruptcy proceedings have gotten terrifically difficult (and hence more expensive) since the Bush "reforms" in this area. Things are bad all the way around, many families are ending up homeless due to medical bills and virtual, if not actually legally filed, bankruptcy. Lots of people are even worse off than I am. People are dying because they can't get adequate medical care and in point of fact my condition would undoubtedly NOT have deteriorated this far had I been able to get timely preventative care, or been able to have the fibroids treated BEFORE I became so anemic and fatigued it damaged my heart.

But that's all water under the bridge, and not the conversation I intended to start.

I know at least one of you means well, but could we please focus on the issue of potential recovery? I'm sorry, I really am, but I've already been put through the mill by people who just refuse to believe that medical assistance is not available to people like me, people who are bound and determined to believe that sick people are lazy grifters sucking them dry for no good reason. I even had a fellow student look me in the eye shortly before I had to drop out of my doctoral program and tell me, "I don't care WHAT you say, if someone really needs medical care all they have to do is go to the Emergency Room and they HAVE to treat you, IF there's something REALLY wrong with you". Implying, therefore, that there's really nothing wrong with me. All a hospital HAS to do is patch you up enough so you don't bleed to death and set any obviously broken bones. They don't HAVE to do anything else, and most of them don't. If you go in and tell them you have cancer, they are not required to provide anything other than palliative care - eg if you're on your last legs and about to die they'll slap you in a hospital bed and dose you with morphine til you stop breathing, but even if it's still treatable they are NOT required to treat it as it's not an IMMEDIATE threat to your life. Then they will harass your surviving relatives with threatening phone calls to try to get them to pay outstanding medical bills, even though there's no legal standing for trying to collect from other people. I know THIS to be true as well because after 2 years I'm STILL getting collection calls from the hospital after my dad died - and he had insurance that paid 80% of his hospital bills!

But again, there I'm off topic myself. There's no help for any of that and having to drag it all back out and explain it again just upsets me even more. So please please please please PLEASE, could we drop this line of discussion and just talk about CHF and its effect on your life, your cycling, and how much (if any) recovery some of you with the condition have had.