Beating Lyme $1 at a Time

My name’s Ryan.  To friends and family I’m known by my internet moniker Aslynn.  For over a decade I've struggled with Lyme disease which I was only diagnosed and started to be treated for about two years ago.  In that time I've spent nearly a hundred thousand dollars looking for answers, going in and out of the Emergency Room, sometimes on the verge of death, and having every aspect of my life negatively impacted from the ability to engage in hobbies to loosing friendships and even jobs.  As those with the disease know it's a game changer.  To quote one person, "People with cancer hope they don't die.  People with Lyme wish they could."

Though I'm significantly improved one area of my body Lyme hit hard was my bladder, prostate, and particularly testicles.  Several years ago, before I was diagnosed, I had a surgery on my left testicle to remove an extremely painful cyst.  The surgeon botched the procedure then put me out to pasture.  Since then I've found an amazing urologist who performed the first corrective surgery last year, but I need another and it's going to cost at least $4,000 out of pocket.

So how does this effect my life, you ask?  Well, let's simply say sitting for any period can be excruciatingly painful.  If and when the fluid in the cyst builds up the pain can increase and radiate outward causing my testicles to become inflamed, pain while urinating, all the kinds of things that you'd expect from a urinary tract infection or a venereal disease, but something we know conclusively is being cause by borelia, the bacteria behind Lyme, and an active Bartonella infection in those tissues (a.k.a "Cat scratch fever").  So yeah, I always have to sleep with pillows between my legs, can't sit for long periods, driving is a pain, can't ride a motorcycle anymore without making matters worse.  Just imagine a pair of vice grips on your testicle, that's how it feels at worse.  For women just imagine any bra you wear feeling like a fifty pound boulder squeezing your breasts paper thin.  

That's just one of the many health issues I have to deal with day in and day out.

Anything  you can do to help me get this surgery and pay down my existing debts and future medical bills would be enormously appreciated.  While my initial goal is $4k, anything above and beyond will be exclusively used to pay for care related to my continuing struggle with Lyme and pay down bills resulting from constant doctor's visits, expensive medications, and the like.  I'm not interested in playing your heart strings or putting on a show to get your help.  I'm just asking.  That's who I am.

Thank you,

Aslynn