Support Rachel's Healing Journey

This GoFundMe is to help Rachel Oppegard with medical bills and expenses while she is unable to work.

Rachel Oppegard has been dealing with a connective tissue autoimmune disease for most of her life, although many years without a name for this ailment that caused her daily pain. Common symptoms of these diseases include muscle pain, bone pain, joint swelling, fatigue, shortness of breath, irregular heart rhythm, and unexplained rashes. Unfortunately, Rachel has all of these and has been able to work through them in her daily job as a talented tattoo artist until recently. The shortness of breath and heart issues have been increasingly debilitating.

The doctors decided step one to fixing her heart is to perform a Nuss procedure. This involves sticking metal underneath her rib cage in order to reform her chest bone so there is more room for her heart. The minimum amount of time out of work after this procedure is 6 weeks. After which, Rachel will then go back to determine what else needs to be done, such as a heart procedure (which will be safer to do post Nuss procedure).

She has a long journey ahead, and while she works to make as much money as possible on her “good” days, those are more and more rare. Please help if you’re able so she can pay her bills, including necessary insurance as a self-employed individual, and provide for her beautiful daughter while she heals up enough to go back to the career she loves, tattooing.