Cease Wyss:Healing From A Broken Leg + 2 Surgeries

In April 2019, I broke my ankle walking towards my car, on the sidewalk. I was enroute to my contract work to share Indigenous knowledge with children in Richmond, for an arts based program. I have recently been told I require another surgery to remove the metal in my leg due to a seriously intense infection that almost killed me, and could have resulted in amputation.  I am grateful to the medical teams from the two Hospitals I am attending for surgery and the IV antibiotics treatment. I am extremely grateful to the West Vancouver Ambulatory Clinic as they do weekly care on my wound and change the tubing and other aspects of my Antibiotics IV, weekly as well. I have had to quit everything I had for planned for a total of 6 months. I gave up training Indigenous youth in Ontario in VR and I gave up a few arts and culture residencies this spring and summer. I gave up my seasonal work with Takaya Tours, which is my favourite work because it encompasses everything I love! The salty sea air and beautiful salt waters, Plant walks daily, storytelling and meeting people from so many places. Ugh. I have also had to withhold from doing anything that could cause my wound to become re-infected. That means no swimming, no canoeing, no hiking in the forest, no berry picking, and the list goes on. I’m almost healed up from this infection, but I need to undergo a second surgery to remove the metal so I can fully heal from this infection. I have been been unemployed since April. I had to move to my mom’s place to heal and in order to access homecare from my community, so as not to burden my elderly mother. I have managed to continue supporting my family despite not working, and due to most of my payments coming in anywhere from 2 weeks to 4 months after I did the contract work I have been barely surviving on, and usually thrive on. I have to wait another 6-8 weeks to heal, and I’m barely surviving on my credit card, the line of credit from my community credit union and the few tiny honorariums I have received through minor short gigs I have been able to do with the injury taking so much of my energy and time to heal. I really need to catch up to my bills, as well as to continue to support my family until I get back to work in September. I finally agreed to do this as a result of finding myself really stressed and trying to not submit to depression from not being able to work at all. I usually tend to donate to everything I can, alongside supporting my community through food security projects that help others access traditional  foods, etc. I finally realized that I am out of resources to stay on top of this health situation that has continued to get worse before it got better. Anything that can help me stay on top of this will be greatly appreciated.No amount is too small. Or large. Lol Honestly, I’m not the best at asking for help, it took a number of people in my life who truly care about me to say it. I truly appreciate the support. Even words of kindness and so on. It all really helps. I just want to make it through the healing to get back to helping others! And being creative! Huy chexw a’ ...Cease