Elk City mother Courtney (Levitt) LeGrand has lived in the community her entire life. Her parents Cindy and Morgan were both well known in the community.
She is now married to Brian. They share four children — Mychaela, Andrea, Angel, and Kasen.
LeGrand is now asking her community for help. She has been struck with a debilitating pain. Her daily life has grown unbearable, but she loves being an active grandmother.
After she started a GoFundMe, her Facebook account was hacked. She now wants to let people know that her new Facebook is, in fact, her.
She said, “In 2012, I was having a lot of pain around my neck and lower back, I went to a specialist and learned that I had injuries from a car accident that I was in , in 2000 while being pregnant with my 2nd daughter. They treated those injuries with epidural injections that I had once per year since then for both areas. In 2014, after my full hysterectomy, I found I had more pain throughout my body, and my doctor did an auto immune blood panel on me which came back that I had rheumatoid arthritis. I was told any auto immune disease can actually be genetic and lay dormant in your system and then when something triggers it you start having flare ups which is what I learned that I was having. Monthly visits to the Oklahoma arthritis clinic started, as well as having my epidural injections every year for my back and lower back. 6 years ago, my doctor had recommended the infusions for treatment to get my auto immune diseases into remission. It was $1600 per infusion that my insurance didn’t cover. This past year insurance started covering my Simponi infusions which I have to have every 6 weeks. Simponi is a biological drug that treats the disease to help the disease go into remission. The pain is still there, and inflammation that is basically uncontrollable at times. My specialist recommended the Medtronic pain pump placement surgery. He said it would be a better quality of life for me, live with minimal pain, and would be the best option. I researched it over a year. There were certain criteria you had to meet to qualify to be a candidate for the surgery. I made sure starting in June that I did everything that was required, suffered daily through all this pain with no medication controlling it, and then once they submitted it to insurance after seeing the surgeon, it was denied after 14 years worth of medical documentation.
The first procedure that has to be done is a trial which is where they keep you overnight and get the right dosage for your pain pump that is distributed straight to the source of the pain. It bypasses your organs and it’s healthier. Once they get the proper dosage for the patient, you undergo a ferment surgical placement, which is about a 3-4 hour surgery. It says the normal recovery time is 6-8 weeks after that.
Then depending on the patient, and their dosage , you visit the surgeon every month or 6 weeks or 3 month to fill the pump with the compounding fed medication that is needed.
The cost for the trial is between $3,000–$5000 The placement surgery for the pain pump is anywhere between $10,000-$13,000, depending on what that medical facility charges.
And the costs for them to refill you each time you go back is $450 for the compound medication.”
