Dave Carlin: Patient Care Grant ends years of pain for Longview man

Put Dave Carlin at the top of the list for "People Who Deserve Our Help." Then put a check mark next to his name with a big exclamation mark.

On Friday, August 15, 2008, at University Hospital in Seattle – after 40 years of discomfort followed by five years of intensified, Vicodin-controlled pain – Dave removed a sound-conducting steel headband from over his head, never again to feel it cutting into the nerves where his skull had been worn down to a thin plate.

Dave was born with Treachers Collins Syndrome, which causes distinctive facial abnormalities and left nubs where his ears should be. The band around his head had to be tight to allow the attached bone-conductor hearing aid to vibrate sound to his inner ear. When surgeons replaced it that day with a BAHA (bone-anchored hearing aid), they also freed Dave from a pain that he says was "ruining my life."

And Dave's not a complainer. Through the stares and the pain, this 50-year-old Longview man went about the business of building a normal, productive life.

Married for 14 years with a seven-year-old son, he worked in the grocery business since early youth. His career included 13 years as night manager for Sav-On Foods in Woodland before the store went out of business in 2007. The loss of his job and his insurance, which had so far refused to pay for the BAHA anyway, came bundled with an extra financial burden – $20,000 in expenses if he wanted to pay for the surgery himself.

By then Dave was desperate enough to consider refinancing the family home to pay for the surgery. A daily routine of popping Advil and up to three Vicodin a day, plus anti-inflammatory medication to control swelling caused by the headband, was killing his stomach. And still the headaches continued.

As his lawyer, his audiologist, his doctor, and an Ear, Nose and Throat specialist continued to lobby the old insurance company on his behalf, Dave prepared to do the refinance. "I had reached a point where I felt I could not go on this way," he says. Truly Dave was caught in the middle. He needed the headband and hearing aid to be able to work. But he couldn't wear it without suffering severe headaches and stomach pain from the drugs he took to control it.

In search of a way out of this impasse Dave's audiologist wrote a letter to the Longview Pioneer Lions, asking for the Club's help. The letter came to Club Hearing Chair Patrick Palmer, who quickly arranged to meet with Dave.

"When you sit down with Dave you can see the physical deformities," says Pat, "but then when you see all the things he has done in his life … who cares? Dave is intelligent, creative, and very kind. You know that saying about what to do when life hands you a lemon? Dave has made hundreds of gallons of lemonade in his lifetime."

Despite the high cost, the club voted to help Dave. With approval of a Lions Patient Care Grant, our Northwest Lions Foundation signed on board to share half of that cost.

Still, the road to help Dave tilted uphill. There were exams to be done, negotiations to be completed with hospitals, and letters and documentation still to be written regarding insurance.

Months passed. Dave took a new job as a manager at Ross Dress for Less, and Pat Palmer kept hammering away on the paperwork, now with help from Alex Conn, the previous Lions Program Manager for the Foundation. Finally, good news came on that front when Dr. Jay Rubinstein, MD – who works with the Foundation as Chairman of our AUDIENT program – and able assistant Jenny Stork convinced Dave's new insurance company that a BAHA was necessary to reduce Dave's pain. This breakthrough cut the anticipated cost from $20,000+ to $5,000 for a deductible and co-payment.

On May 5, 2008, Dave underwent surgery at the UW Medical Center, where a titanium screw was implanted in his skull near the inner ear. Fifteen more weeks of waiting followed to give the bone time to accept the screw that would serve as the anchor for his hearing aid. Finally, on that Friday in August, the hearing aid was anchored on the side of Dave's skull, and he was free forever of the headgear.

Dave and Pat are both aware that it will take Dave more months to acclimate to the new aid, but both are happy that the main struggle is won. "The day Dave got his surgery was one of the happiest of my life," says Pat. "Our whole Lions team made something happen that wasn't going to happen without us."

For Dave, the day the BAHA came and the headgear went was "a huge event in my life." Following the May surgery to prepare for the BAHA, it was typical of Dave to send an e-mail to his Lions team of supporters. "Soon I will be fitted with the BAHA," he wrote, "and forever grateful for all your efforts to see that – after five years of efforts – I can be free of pain and free of pain management. Thank You."