Help Zyra pay for cancer surgery and downtime

Hi, I'm Zyra (She/her), and I'm 36 years old... and recently diagnosed with cancer in my kidney. Which is scary.

First, for foremost, I almost never ask for help with anything, it's a weakness. I am making this Gofundme because I am drowning in medical debt and soon it's going to get worse. I want to beat cancer but in order to do that, ill need to acquire help from the community. This money I am raising is for medical and monthly expenses while I am down and unable to do much. I am hoping it's a one-and-done thing, that the cancer has not spread, and I can be cancer free for the rest of my life.

So here is a little about me. I am a Michigan native, I grew up around Metro Detroit. We moved a dozen or so times growing up and I ended up spending a big chunk of my early teen to early 20s in the Ferndale and Hazel Park Area.

I have been an artist for as long as I can remember. Art saved my life. I make art non-stop. Since I was a kid, I had been drawing and taking advanced art classes. I wanted to go to CCS out of high school but it never ended up working out due to the amount of money and not being able to secure any scholarships in school.

Out of high school, I had a bunch of different jobs, like being a lab assistant for a chemist, doing door-to-door sales, working at a car wash, doing multiple retail jobs, working online as tech support, and so on. Eventually, I wanted to get back into art so, at some point in my mid 20's, I started working in 3d and working with adobe products primarily for the reason of becoming a professional.

Fast forward to when I was in my mid 20's... I found out I was trans and once I started becoming my authentic self, I started to really blossom as far as creativity and self-care went. I ended up grinding my way through hours and hours of tutorials and learning on my own until I wanted to get into game design.

From 2013 to 2018 I went to school full-time and worked 2 other jobs to support myself. In 2017 I landed a job at a studio and in 2019 I went freelance.

Currently, I am a freelance animator, digital artist, programmer, music producer, painter, performer ... a trans-fem freelance artist. I spend tons of time each month creating paintings, music, and music videos for fun. For work, I take on commissions for medical, accident reconstruction, and forensic animations.

I have been a working animator now for a solid 5 years.

I am going to need help with these medical and living expenses at least while I'm post-op and running down infusions of chemo.

Back in April, I had surgery and the doctors had done something to nick my bladder. I had to have a kidney stent put in, and ultimately the stent had to be taken out and followed up with an ultrasound. This led to the discovery of my cyst and with further scans, it was discovered to be encompassing my entire right kidney with 4-5 chambers of fluid, veins, and arterial connections trough-out, and a solid mass at the bottom measuring around 7x7x5 cm.

I am having robotic surgery again, recovery is going to be challenging due to this being my second major surgery in under a year.

Surgery day is set for January 4th, 2023.

I am asking for as much help as possible! If you are interested in checking out any of my work, here are my links!

Link to all my Art music and social media