My story
I have lived with obesity for most of my life.
For a long time, it was something I knew I needed to deal with, but it never seemed quite urgent enough. There was always another diet to try, another time to start, another reason that right now was not the right time. I could always tell myself I would take it more seriously next year.
I ran out of runway in my late 30s.
If there was one moment when I understood what waiting was costing me, it was having a heart attack at 38. The consequences had arrived slowly. A little more weight. A little less mobility. Another health problem.
Eventually, I found myself driving to the hospital on a Sunday evening because something about that particular pain felt wrong. I almost went home and slept it off. If I had, I likely wouldn’t be here right now.
I now live with daily complications: atrial fibrillation and serious problems with my heart. I take medication every day, and I know that my health is not something I can keep putting off.
There are things I would give a great deal to go back and tell my younger self. Mostly, I would tell him that he does not have as much time as he thinks he does.
That experience is a large part of why EverRoot Care exists.
Needing help and being able to get it are different things.
When I finally started taking my health seriously, I also began to understand how difficult it can be to actually get help.
I have great health insurance, and I am thankful for it. It has covered my heart problems and other consequences of carrying this much weight. But my insurance company, like so many others, does not pay for weight loss medication.
Treatment that I need exists. My clinician agrees that it is appropriate. But I cannot afford it.
If you know what that feels like, you are not alone. I know what it is like to need medical help and discover that the path between needing it and actually receiving it is filled with cost, requirements, appointments, insurance decisions, and one more obstacle after another.
No medication is a miracle, and I am not going to tell you that one treatment, one clinician, or one program is going to change your life. I cannot know that.
What I do believe, very strongly, is that you have the right to try.
You should be able to talk honestly with a licensed clinician about where you are, what you are struggling with, and what options may be appropriate for you. If there is a reasonable treatment available, cost and complexity should not make the decision for you before you and your clinician have the chance to make it yourselves.
That is what I wanted EverRoot to help with.
You do the work. You should not have to find the path alone.
Treatment does not remove your responsibility. You are still the person who has to do the work. I am still doing mine. There is no prescription that can make every decision for us, and there is no company that can promise us an outcome.
But I think there is an enormous difference between having to do the work yourself and having to find the path yourself.
I spent too much of my life believing I could deal with my health later. I cannot go back and change that. What I can do is be honest about it now, and try to make the path a little easier for the person who is standing where I once stood.
If that is you, start where you are.
You do not have to have everything figured out. You do not have to become a different person first.
Just take the next honest step.
That is the reason EverRoot Care exists.
For you.
Christopher, Co-Founder, EverRoot Care
