Despite having health insurance, a guy is relying on GoFundMe donations to seek surgery to remove keloids from his body.
Davontae Stewart started a GoFundMe page to raise money for the procedure “because my insurance doesn’t cover Keloid surgery’s they consider it Cosmetic,” the petition states.
“It’s hard to even get people to understand what I’m dealing with,” Stewart said.
According to Fox 2 Detroit, the scarring began in his boyhood.
“Me being a kid, I scratched the chickenpox off and I woke up the next morning, and I had little bubbles over my whole body,” he said.
Stewart’s mother’s keloids deteriorated after a doctor in Detroit urged that she have them all removed at once.
“It didn’t work,” Stewart explained, “and they all came back — in stitch form, and they’ve been getting bigger over time.”
The keloids have grown and formed together into large raised scars that cover most of his body, as seen in photos.
“It’s spiraling out of control; it is already over 75 percent of my body already,” he said. “And it is continuing to grow, and I am scared for my life.”
His profession as a licensed nursing assistant has become too strenuous due to the scarring. He had to resign his employment as a Diesel mechanic after graduating from the Universal Technical Institute in Illinois owing to physical restrictions.
In the New York office of Dr. Michael Jones, one of the country’s top cosmetic and reconstructive surgeons, Stewart found hope. Stewart’s insurance, on the other hand, considers the treatment to be cosmetic and will not cover it.
Thousands of dollars are expected to be spent on the procedure. Stewart has roughly $18,000 toward his $100,000 target thus far.
“I am just scared of all of it – it is not that I just have keloids,” he said. “I have keloids and they are continuing to grow.”
