Hello all! It's my birthday and I usually throw a big event but this year I am ~exhausted~. A lot of it is from pursuing a new career path (yay cool!) but I'm also super rundown because I live in USA, which means I am now experiencing crushing medical debt.

I have a desmoid tumor in my shoulder, which isn't cancerous (yeehaw) but it's also not benign. Desmoids grow (sometimes aggressively) and boy howdy, mine really likes growing.

Unfortunately the only two options I have to keep it in check are *chemotherapy* or cryoablation. Chemo sucks for obvious reasons but cryoablation is awesome. They freeze the little bugger from the inside-- it's minimally invasive and doesn't make me debilitatingly ill for at least a year.

The kicker: my insurance company will only cover chemo because it lines their pockets. They won't make money off of me if I take the cryoablation route, which is the legitimately better treatment for what I have.

My insurance company is doing everything they can to not cover my treatments, meanwhile the glob keeps on growing. I've been having cryo treatments and the last bill I received looked like $25,000.

I'm not asking for that much because I have a foolish morsel of hope that we can possibly appeal it, but in the meantime I still have MRI bills, telehealth visits (my 30 minute telehealth visit to my cryo doctor cost $300) and honestly, every day I'm getting new bills from different providers. It's really disheartening.

My birthday ask is $5000; this will cover what I owe to Mt Baker imaging (because of that time I was booted off of my old insurance and they didn't notify me. Hilarious.) and will allow me to at least cover some of my deductible for the random healthcare Regence actually does cover. In addition to the ablation procedures, I get MRIs every three months (probably for the rest of my life.) Mt Baker Imaging should have a punch card service but for some reason they don't. Jerks.

I hate that I'm even asking, but hey. America amirite? Thank you so much for reading.