Welcome to the GoFundMe for

I’m so grateful to have you here :)

Wanna skip the sob story? I’ve been very sick for six years, and could use some help affording a wheelchair and a device called a power assist. If you’d like the whole sordid tale, scroll on.

After six years of severe illness during which I have been primarily housebound, bedbound, or hospitalbound, I am looking for help affording an active wheelchair in hopes of regaining both mobility and freedom.

“But, Leah!” you might find yourself saying, “I’m pretty sure your legs work, don’t they?”

A great question, friend! (Though probably not one you should ask a stranger. Just some free advice from me to you ) Allow me to humbly introduce you to the world of

✨ Ambulatory Wheelchair Users! ✨

From chronic pain, to chronic fatigue, to heart and lung conditions, to muscle weakness, there are many reasons why someone with “functioning” legs would need a wheelchair. Which is why you should refrain from gasping, clutching your chest, and screaming “IT'S A MIRACLE!” when some unsuspecting girl in a wheelchair stands up to grab the Fruity Pebbles off a high shelf in the grocery store. Long story short, my legs work. The rest of my body? Not so much.

“Really? ‘Long story short’? Come on, Leah. I’m giving you my hard-earned money. The least you could do is give me the juicy details. What happened to you? Why are you like this? What’s your deal?”

…Fine.

For this next part, I’d like you to imagine me taking a very, very deep breath and reciting this all in one exhale. You know, like I have to do every time I end up in the hospital.

This is the tale I like to call:

Lemony Snicket’s A Series of Unfortunate Medical Events

(You can’t get sued for copyright infringement on a GoFundMe page, right? Nobody would do that, right?)

It all started in the year of the Great Plague of 2020, when I, Leah, along with millions of others, caught a life-threatening, treatment-resistant, highly infectious disease.

But it wasn’t COVID.

The disease was called C Diff – Clostridium Difficile for the fancy-pants scientists among us. And to this day I hate talking about it because it is essentially the “poop yourself ‘til you die” disease. Embarrassing, right? But we’re on the internet begging strangers for a medical device! We’re well past the point of humility, aren’t we?

Anyway. It turns out MY case of C Diff was particularly nasty. Six failed rounds of treatment over the course of one long, horrible year. Weeks and weeks of hospitalization. Severe sepsis. ICU. Being told by a doctor, “We’re going to do everything we can for you, but…” like I’m non-consensually guest starring on an episode of Grey’s Anatomy. A flight I don’t remember to the Minnesota Mayo Clinic and an experimental treatment finally put me into long-term remission.

Did you think it was over? Not even close! We are barely through Chapter One of Why Driving Past Hospitals Makes Leah Sweaty, Now.

Recovery was an uphill battle. C Diff and Post-Sepsis Syndrome did their damage and we thought it was just a waiting game of giving my body time to heal and get back to baseline.

But symptoms were getting worse, not better, and in 2021, it was discovered I had severe hyperthyroidism. The culprit was a large toxic thyroid nodule on the left half of my thyroid. So it was time for more anesthesia! The nodule (and half of my thyroid) were cut out in a hemithyroidectomy. After, my remaining half-a-thyroid didn’t compensate like we hoped it would. I dipped into hypothyroidism and have been on medication ever since.

“Okay, that sucks. But that’s it, right?”

Wrong!

The pelvic pain that we incorrectly assumed was lingering damage from C Diff got worse, and worse, and worse, until there were weeks I couldn’t get out of bed. My body also decided to start doing more gross things, like giving me periods that last 1-4 months straight that cannot be stopped by medication! Ever needed a blood transfusion for your menstrual cycle? It isn’t fun! And then there were the ovarian cysts – often rupturing – the largest of which was 8.3cm. As any woman with women’s health issues will tell you, it took years to get appropriate treatment. But I eventually went under for yet another surgery, an exploratory laparoscopy that found Stage Three Endometriosis all over my entire pelvis. Uterus, ovaries, bladder, intestines, connective tissue. They excised what they could, and I prepared for the inevitable future surgeries, because there is no cure for Endometriosis.

Oh, and just a little while after this surgery, I got into a hit and run car accident on Thanksgiving that totaled my car and worsened my back pain.

“Dang, Leah. What a wild story. But I’m running a little late. And this is getting a little long, and–”

But wait, there’s more!

Last year, I started passing out! Literally just fainting – like one of those goats or a frail Victorian woman! There were a lot of other symptoms, but you aren’t a doctor, you’re Just Some Guy trying to decide whether or not you should throw your change from your gas station Mountain Dew into my virtual guitar case! (or, wait, are you a doctor? If you’re a doctor, hit me up. We could really use all hands on deck over here.)

Anyway. It turns out I also have ✨ Adrenal Insufficiency! ✨ This is a fun little disorder where your body doesn’t produce enough cortisol. I got it from an adenoma (benign tumor) on my pituitary gland! In my brain! You might be thinking, “Wow, Leah! Sounds great! Every other video on my FYP and Insta feed is telling me how to lower my cortisol to avoid Cortisol Face! You don’t have enough cortisol? You must be gorgeous!”

To which I would say, yes I am, but shut up! Because what Adrenal Insufficiency actually means is I get to be on steroids for the rest of my life. I’ll likely be symptomatic for the rest of my life. And every time I catch so much as a head cold or a flu, I’m at serious risk of life threatening Adrenal Crisis! I spent the last year with a PICC line (a permanent IV that runs into your chest near your heart) because repeated adrenal lows and crises as we dialed in my medications made me unable to maintain a safe blood pressure and sodium level.

“Okay, I’m actually starting to think you might be making this all up.”

Boy do I wish that were the case!

Luckily, this is the end of the saga…for now. But what I’ve been left with is a lot of wreckage. Financial (I stopped counting when I hit $90,000 of medical debt), emotional, and physical.

Here’s the part where I get a little serious.

Despite all of the diagnoses technically being treated and managed right now, I struggle daily with chronic pain that ranges from moderate to severe, chronic fatigue, severe temperature dysregulation, POTS-like cardiac symptoms that make it difficult to stand and walk, and ongoing symptoms of Endometriosis that have me looking down the barrel of a hysterectomy and more excision surgeries. It’s looking like there might be Endo growing on my sciatic nerve. The pain from that highly impacts my mobility. I’m often unable to stand for more than a minute or two without excruciating pain.

And for the last few years, I have been…waiting. Waiting for improvement of symptoms. Waiting for medications and procedures to improve my quality of life. Waiting for the random, nonsensical diagnoses to stop coming so I can “get on my feet again”. And I can’t wait anymore. As anyone close to me knows, I spend the vast majority of my time at home – not because I want to, but because I’m too sick to be up and out. I miss the sunshine! I miss concerts and weddings and movies and I’m not too proud to admit, the grocery store!

And there is one thing that can give me all of those things back, and it is – you guessed it!

A wheelchair!

This is where you come in ♡

Unfortunately, I live in the US, where things like this don’t come easy. I’m lucky enough to have some wonderful family (love u, dad ♡) who are going to help me with the chair itself.

But I don’t just need a chair, I need something called a “Power Assist.” It is a motor that will attach to the chair, very similar to an electric bike, that makes it significantly easier to self-propel. For me, a person with severe chronic fatigue, this means having the endurance (see: battery life) to go on long outings, to go to events, to travel. It means that I can move around the world on my own rather than relying on others to push me around. It means independence – a gift I never understood the importance of before I became disabled. But this device is expensive. And with being in the aforementioned significant medical debt, and being unable to work, I need your help. I cannot overstate how profoundly impactful a chair with a power assist will be on my life.

So that’s why I need your help!

What you get in return:

If, miraculously, donations exceed the set goal, any extra money will go towards:

I know times are tough for everyone right now. If you’re able to donate or share, I want to say thank you. I hope you and yours are healthy, happy, and safe. ♡