Hello, my name is Sawyer. I have top surgery in less than 3 weeks now (on March 1st) and I am So excited for it. However, my parents, who had initially said that they could help me cover costs associated with the surgery, are now threatening to take away financial support if I go through with it. It feels like I have been waiting my whole life for this surgery, and to get so close and have it potentially get ripped from my grasp is devastating. With the current political climate in Utah, I do not feel comfortable postponing the surgery as I fear for new laws affecting my ability to get it.

A breakdown of finances:

I work full time as a medical scribe. I have been putting in as much overtime as I can leading up to this surgery, often to the point of me getting sick. I am disabled and it is Really hard to balance how much I'm able to work with even just paying bills. I have a bachelor's degree and am only making $14-16/hour (depending on if I'm training someone or not). I am currently living paycheck to paycheck and rely on my parents to help meet the gap if I'm short at the end of the month. I have applied to so many jobs and have been unable to get anything better than this at this time.

The surgery was approved by my insurance and I have approximately $2000 left of my out of pocket max. I do plan on meeting with the hospital's financial assistance folks to reduce the amount I have to pay. I already have ~$2000 of medical debt that I have a payment plan set up for.

What I mostly need help with is the costs of taking 2 weeks off of work to recover after surgery. I have about 20 hours of PTO that I will be using, but that obviously does not equate to the ~80 hours of wages I would normally be getting in that time frame. My parents have agreed to help with housing costs but not medical, and at this point I'm scared of that assistance being taken away too.

Thank you for taking the time to read this. I understand that I am very privileged to be getting any support at all from my family. It is terrifying to be trans a lot of the time though. I appreciate anything folks are willing to chip my way.