Applying plugin variable to index?

I’m using the easypaypal plugin to charge writers per post. It basically gives them a credit and stores it as $epp_item_number; within the plugins code. I want to put something in the dashboard that displays how many credits a person has left. Is there anyway to do this? You can look at the site at:
http://milliondollarblogger.net
My idea was to do something like this <?php echo $epp_item_number; ?> but it doesn’t work because the variable isnt stored in the index.php file.
I don’t know if this is enough info, but i would be grateful for any help!