Jessica Perry

Being sick with high medical bills, trying to get disability benefits from Social Security and living on food stamps is a situation that many find themselves in and while they do the best they can with what they have, it seems there is little if any help available.

Such is the case with Jessica Perry, 32, of Lehigh Acres. As a young woman, she has been diagnosed with several medical problems and trying to find help is a nightmare.

She says if it wasn’t for her parents, who have helped provide her a home in Lehigh next to her sister, she wouldn’t know what to do.

Perry, who was born pre-mature has had medical problems for several years, but most of them have worsened in the last 10 to 12 years. They’re bad enough that she can’t work, although she would like to find a part-time job in criminal justice that deals with cybercrime as she has college degrees in those subjects. But she would have to work part-time if possible and she needs disability benefits to help her survive.

Perry says she has thousands of dollars in credit card debt and her parents keep the minimum monthly premiums up and have provided housing for her so she won’t be out on the street. Her sister also has medical problems and receives disability benefits.

MEL TOADVINE Jessica Perry and her dog, Kovi.

Perry moved to Lehigh several months ago from the Tampa area, where her parents live. They hope to follow when they are able to sell their home.

“They want the whole family to be together,” she said.

Some of her medical issues include serious anxiety disorder both social and general, depression, irritable bowel syndrome, ulcer and GERD, ongoing serious sinus infections, body and back pain with sciatica, a polyp in her gall bladder, a growth on her gall bladder and problems with her liver, anemia, high blood pressure, several allergies and high cholesterol.?She is partially deaf in one ear.

She must take a lot of medications, which she buys from out-of-town pharmacies and charges their costs to her credit cards, which keep building up in fees and costs.

“I don’t know how it all is going to end. I am waiting and waiting to get my disability status with Social Security, but they keep putting me off and off and now they tell me they are waiting for an appointment date. When that will be, I have no idea,” said. “They told me it could be another year.”

Just all the pain and the ailments she is going through has made the anxiety worse, she says her doctors up north have told her. She works with an attorney in the Lakeland area, but without Social Security disability, she is living the hard life as others are forced to do by being put off several times in trying to gain financial benefits through disability.

“I don’t know what to do. There doesn’t seem to be any way to turn for help,” she said. “I do get food stamps and that helps buy me buy food. I am a vegetarian, that is better for me, but the food doesn’t last long and I have to conserve as much as I can,” she said.

She has been told to look for help at Lehigh Social Services and at the First Congregational Church for food, which she was unaware of as a new resident.

“My mom and dad aren’t rich people and they do what they can to help me keep the creditors off my back with the credit cards, but they have to be paid, and without help from somewhere, I can’t do it myself. And I can’t keep depending on my mother and father,” she said.

She has zero income. Her best friend is her dog, Kovi, a Chihuahua.

“If I had to make house payments, I wouldn’t be able to. And here in Florida, while I hate to have to ask the system for help, there doesn’t seem many ways one can get help financially.

“I have to have electricity and I try to keep those bills as low as I can. It’s just hard to get help from any agency or organization here to help people get back on their feet,” she said.

“I get $194 a month for food and I stretch that out because groceries are so high now.”

“I have so many medical problems that the doctors near Tampa say I have severe immune problems and they want to run tests of that deficiency but I am not able to get medical financial help. And when you go to a doctor or a hospital and are asked about insurance and you have nothing, they won’t even help you,” she said.

Part of the work she has done over the years has been in a medical venue where she saw people turned away because they had no insurance and no money.

Without money to pay for the premiums, she cannot afford Obamacare.

So what does someone in her situation do? Nobody can seem to give her any answers.

“I want to be productive. I am sick, just sick of being tired and fatigued all the time. I am sick of not knowing where to turn for help. I have sinus infections all the time and they can’t seem to prevent them from coming back,” she said.

Blood tests show a long list of medical problems. They were done near Tampa through a county program which paid for the tests. She doesn’t know of any way in Lee County to get blood testing done without having to charge it to her credit cards.

She has gone on the Internet, as someone suggested she do, to get help, but no help has come. It’s a site known as YouCaring.com.

Even though she has been on it for a few weeks and has told her story, nobody has offered any help and that has left her devastated, she said.

“I’m sick and it’s frustrating and with all the problems I have, some people don’t take me serious. I wish I was well and could do things like others, but I just can’t,” she said.

Her story is a plea for help, a plea for advice, a plea for financial help; a plea to be able to know which way to turn. To contact her, email LoveJessicaLee@icloud.com.

“Just some words of what to do would be so helpful. If there are areas in which I can get help, I need to know. I want to get better. I want to become a working member of society. But at the present time, I just can’t manage it. I don’t know where to turn. Thank God for my parents and my sister in Lehigh,” she said.

“But they are financially limited to how much more they can help me,” she said.