Kristen's Recovery and Bills

11/12/24: I'm here, needing just the tiniest bit of extra help. You all have done so much for me and I'll never forget it. Physically, recovery is all done. Financially and mentally, still have a ways to go. I've put my ADHD medication trials on hold because it is causing too many issues with my much more important anxiety/depression issues. I've had to miss some work and have more medical appointments because of these interactions, which has left me a bit short for rent this month, and it needs to be paid by the 14th. I'm $450 short. If anyone has the room in their budgets to donate, that would be wonderful and you'd be saving me from having to potentially life with Jason for a while, if he would even allow it, which I really don't know if he would or not. I'm working a lot of overtime, selling things and am not taking anymore medical time off, so this should be the last time I have to make such a request.

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So this has not been my best year ever so far, as many of you know. I'm going to need a third surgery this year, and having been out of work for so long with the first two, I'm in a tight spot.

A little recap of my super awesome life lately. Last fall my periods started to get weird. I'd have one every two weeks with pretty crazy PMDD as well. Talked with my doctor over what we can do about it, ultimately it came down to a partial hysterectomy. Left the ovaries, took everything else. That recovery was intense, and a few days after the surgery I got really horrible chest pains. I went to the Emergency Room and after many hours and lots of testing, it turned out to be my gallbladder. They said the walls were thickening and I had a slurry of stones in there, it needed to come out. But also, there was something not right about my left kidney. Further CT scans were ordered for the kidney.

I waited a couple weeks to heal as much as I could from the hysterectomy, and then got my gallbladder out. They confirmed chronic inflammation in the gallbladder along with TWENTY gallstones. CT scans came back for the left kidney. Cystic mass with a solid nodule inside. They called it a Bosniak category IV renal cystic mass. There are four categories of the Bosniak cyst, 1 being eh, keep an eye on it; 4 being get it out. At 4 it is treated as renal cell carcinoma, because it almost always turns out to be cancerous. It can't be biopsied because the solid mass is within a cyst and with it very likely being cancer, puncturing the cyst just isn't an option unless I wanna get cancer all over the place. This needs to be taken out whole within the body. I will likely lose about 20% of my left kidney. The chances of it coming back to either kidney is the same, 1-2%, so that's why they don't just take the whole left kidney. This is a surgery I need to go to Sacramento for, to a kidney specialist that can deal with the carcinoma, and will be inpatient. Recovery will be harder than the hysterectomy because of where the kidney is.

I am just now back to work from the hysterectomy and the cholecystectomy. As soon as I can, I go in to remove the mass on the kidney. As it is, I have to wait. I'm behind in almost all of my bills (disability is a small fraction of my usual pay), unsure where rent is going to come from for May, and until I can find a way to pay current past due bills as well as the bills I'll need to pay during my next surgery recovery, I can't get the surgery done. It will be 3-4 months until I can get it done on my own. I personally don't want cancer hanging out in my body for that long, but it is what it is.

I've asked a lot of my people lately, and no one wishes I didn't have to do this more than I. I'm grasping at any straw I can to get this done as soon as possible, for obvious reasons.

Thank you so much for your consideration. I truly appreciate it.