Mitchell Hansen Medical and Family Planning

Forgive me

It’s been a while since you’ve heard from me. Especially like this. I’m sorry it’s taken me so long to share where I am on my journey with my health and future.

I wish I had better news to share. The truth is, I’m writing this here to all of you because I’m out of options. American healthcare is breaking, and more and more folks of all ages are reporting chronic unexplainable sensitivities, conditions, or diseases. One such person is myself. I’ve now been battling largely undiagnosed chronic illness for more than 3 years. Oct. 2021-Feb. 2025

The Recap

Financial:

You all may remember the last time I had published a GoFundMe. It was the winter of 21/22. I had been diagnosed with an ulcer from stress, and had to take 2 months off of work and go on short term disability. I returned to work and was discriminated upon and was unceremoniously fired. Though I’d missed 2/3 of the quarter, they asked me to hit all goals as if I’d worked the entire time. They fired me 9 days after returning to work. That same week, my cat Bubba had to get a 5000$ surgery, and I had someone do about 3000$ in damages to my car. In an instant, my job, healthcare, savings- all my security blankets and supports were pulled out from under me. I wrote here and explained the situation and asked for help, which you all as an incredible community so graciously and generously provided for me. I’m so thankful. That 5000$ dollars (and more donated past that) at least helped get me to 0$ which I needed desperately at the time.

Happy ending right? I certainly wish. I spent the next year unemployed and getting sicker and sicker. I got 6 months of unemployment, but it wasn’t enough to continue to cover the continued cost of my medical care. Even though I was ill, I was working hard to network, take classes, and eventually I broke into a new industry as a video game producer in Nov. of 2022, starting as a contracted worker for 9 months until I was promoted in August 2023 to full time salary. 3 months later in Nov. 2023, my entire department was laid off with no warning and only a few weeks severance. I hadn’t restored my savings or been able to pay down my debt because I only got paid hourly, and when I did get salary it was only 55k a year. I had at least 6 months of not working, I reimbursed myself with unemployment then had another 6 months of not working. I had just enough money to keep my rent covered and my bills at bay… but credit card and medical debt has a way of creeping up on you.

It’s been over a year since that layoff, now in Feb. 2025 that I’m writing this. I’m weaker, and sicker than ever, and while I’m in the process of applying for disability benefits, my situation has continued to worsen in almost every aspect. I was finally forced to come home to VA to live with my parents because I can no longer take care of or provide for myself.

While my family is helping cover so many of the costs of having a disability, we are by no means wealthy. And since my condition remains so poor, my debt and monthly health expenses continues to grow.

This is why I’m coming to you all. To see if somehow you can do the impossible again.

The Now

Deteriorating Health:

My weight had fluctuated, I was throwing up or having diarrhea multiple times a day and night. Having migraines. Having intense body pain. Trembling. Neuropathy. Muscle weakness. Loss of coordination. Chronic fatigue syndrome. Diabetes. High Blood Pressure. High heart rate. Elevated liver, kidney, spleen enzymes. Elevated white blood cells, red blood cells. No testosterone. No patassium. No B12. There’s so many things abnormal about me but simultaneously nothing is so abnormal that it’s definitively anything.

I’ve been tested for everything and everything’s mom. And still we are going through doctors like pies at a state fair. While a large part of my pain and illness management is NOT being managed or diagnosed and remains a mystery, we do have some small puzzle pieces that fit in so far.

Gastropareisis- normally, when you eat something, the food sits in your stomach for approximately 30 minutes, breaking down and then empties the contents into your digestive tract. Folks like myself have “delayed gastric emptying”. The first 30 minutes 62% of your food should move to the intestines. At 30 minutes only 15% of my food has made its way into my intestines.

TLDR; food sits in my stomach for hours. Sometimes days. Creating pressure, pain, malnutrition, vomiting, nausea, diarrhea. Fun!

Fibromyalgia- a fancy word for unexplainable severe pain disorders that have no other explanation. Many women who used to be or were diagnosed “hysterical” actually had fibromyalgia. The pain can be dull or pronounced, burning and achey or stabbing sharp jolts. It’s also led to muscle weakness, loss of balance, stiffness, loss of coordination… TLDR; I hurt all over like some 80 year old. I walk with a cane at 29. It’s debilitating

Chronic Migraines - headaches x1000

While many of you know what migraines are, I hope that you only know them once every few months or even years and that you’re able to take medicine or drink a pop and feel better. This is not my case. I’ve tried every drug under the sun. I’m so far along into the treatment of migraines that I have “chronic migraines” meaning I have more than 15-20 migraine days a month.

TLDR; 20/30 days every month I’m in agonizing and debilitating head, neck, eye, pain. Sensitive to lights and sounds and movements. So much so I’ve cracked two teeth in pain, and been to the ER twice in the past 60 days. MRI scanned because they thought I was hemorrhaging.

Chronic fatigue syndrome, elevated levels, diabetes, HPB, NAFLD - what does 20 migraine days, throwing up constantly, chronic pain and suffering, fibromyalgia, and gastropareisis for 3 years do to a person?

It means everyday I feel like I’m chained to the bottom of the ocean. Drowning, under so much pressure, I’m unable to move more than a little bit at a time. makes me diabetic. It makes me have high blood pressure. It makes me immunocompromised. It’s given me non-alcoholic fatty liver disease.

TLDR; Well. It makes me disabled. It’s robbed me of joy, of work, of autonomy, of so many things.

Autism- I was diagnosed with Autism at 26, some may call it Asperger’s, or “level1” autism. It makes everything harder. I am more sensitive to everything- light, sound, scent, touch, taste, temperature, pain.. it also means I register more things as pain. Loud noises register as pain inside the autistic brain compared to the neurotypical brain. Autistics are 4x more likely to die by suicide, and 2x more likely to have a chronic illness. Autistics succumb to disease on average 30-40 years before their healthy counterparts. Average lifespan of an autistic person is 39. Some live up to their 60’s and 70’s. Ideally, I’d like to have the chance to become one of those individuals.

OCD- if you’re like me, maybe you didn’t know a lot about OCD. Maybe you’re imagining it as something very specific. To me, it is dangerous, violent, and intrusive thoughts or images or hurting myself that make the inside of my brain a terror to myself sometimes. These thoughts are awful and trigger feelings of guilt and doubt as I wonder where these thoughts are coming from. Normal folks may have these thoughts “what if I drove into traffic?” But they can instantly or quickly move on from those thoughts. OCD is like a pop up you can’t minimize. You get no respite and there’s no choice in your thoughts. They occur over and over sometimes for weeks or months or years at a time. That’s the O. These obsessions force some people into compulsions. Things they may do or say to make themselves feel better. “Let me double triple check the door is closed, I’ll say “it’s closed” out loud and that will prevent burglars from entering my home.” That’s the C. It makes you feel like what you’re doing is normal or even helpful. When you spend more than a few hours thinking about your obsessions, compulsions, - then you have the disorder. It impacts your life.

TLDR; Just like autism, this is a mental disorder that affects my perception of reality and my physical response to stimuli and environment. Both of these are full disabilities. Couple with my physical limitations I’m considered permanently disabled.

Home again: Sarah, my partner and best friend has been my primary caretaker for more than 3 years. Almost the entirety of our relationship. We met in June of ‘21, and I was sick by October of ‘21. As I deteriorated, stopped sleeping, stopped eating as much, and more and more limitations crept in, this became too much on her alone. Not to mention her inability to work more than part-time in order for her to take care of me full-time. Since we were both unable to work, our financial situation turned grim. We couldn’t afford medical treatments, prescriptions, food.

To alleviate this, my mother, father, stepfather and the rest of my family stepped up. They invited me back down to VA to live with my mom and stepdad. They cook us meals, take me to appointments and treatments, they help with chores and the personal burden of these diseases.

And again, while their help is considerable- it is not enough to pay off the medical and necessary debt we accumulated over these past few years. And it’s not nearly enough to make sure Sarah and I could live on our own and start a family of our own.

This is why I’ve come to you for help.

The wrong way out:

Suicide is not a topic I relish. I’ve tried to end my own life several times, and thankfully been unsuccessful. My aunt was not so lucky. She died by Suicide almost 6 years ago now and the pain and her absence still hurts to this day. Unfortunately, I struggle with these thoughts still.

Because I can’t control my physical sickness, I never get to imagine a day when I feel better. I always wake up sick. This makes it extremely hard to feel autonomous and valuable to myself, others, or society.

Autistics are 4x more likely to die by suicide, and it remains one of the leading killers in autistic communities. If I’m lucky, I only think about killing myself a couple times a day. But it’s often much more, and my OCD presents intrusive thoughts about my own death so much that I start to doubt whether or not it’s what I actually want.

Often times my obsessive thoughts are around my own or other’s behavior. I convince myself that I am not worth the money. The food. The time. The love. That my life is a cosmic accident anyway and that I could somehow help the people in my life by ending my own.

No more medical appts. No more debt. No more pain. No more suffering. No more endless pain. No more patronizing “have you tried a cleanse?”

But I’m fighting this every step of the way. I have a safety plan taped to my fridge. I’m in therapy twice a week. I’m seeing a psychiatrist and two neurologists. I’m doing the work.

All I can do now, is try to reduce my stress and the things in my environment or life that cause me to spiral or to feel hopeless.

That’s where you all come in.

How you can help

Donations- by reducing my medical debt and bills, I can take more of the financial component out of the equation. Every little bit helps, and this helps me afford more medical necessities like meal replacements and prescriptions. While reducing my debt helps improve my credit score, financial autonomy, and sets me and Sarah up to rent or buy a home in the future to raise our family in.

Resources- if some of you have been through something similar before, offering your experiences and stories, and subsequently, any resources you may have to make things easier. If that be bureaucratically, emotionally, physically, etc.

If you have disability tips to make things easier or that have made your lives easier I would love those resources or recommendations.

I am NOT however looking for medical advice or “have you tried?” I most likely won’t have the time or ability to be able to synthesize my medical history to a place where you’re working with up to date info. So let’s avoid this if possible.

Community- this is all extremely isolating, as you can imagine. I feel alone when I’m up at 3am because of my symptoms and I’m unable to sleep, eat, relax, etc. I need validation. I need communication. Friends. Togetherness. I need to feel like I have value to bring this world that isn’t physical or working a job. Especially given the state of our world. If you can reach out and offer me friendship- I will gladly take your hand. Or share this story and perhaps others can donate.

Thank you very much for reading, and I hope you’ll consider donating or offering what assistance you may be able to.

15,000 dollars would be enough to hoist myself up out of most debt, as well as save some money for my future and my family’s future. To buy a house, to have children, to grow and secure my health and future.

If you’d like more information on my expenses weekly, monthly, or annually, please reach out and I’ll share my budgets on a case by case basis. I want you all to feel comfortable I’m not spending this money on anything but my future.

Thank you again.

Warmly,

Mitchell