Donate to Mika Turbo's Top Surgery Recovery Fund

My name is Mika Turbo, I’m 36 and I’m transgender man. I’m going to get super personal here and tell my story and I hope that you can help me after reading.

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the TL;DR is I’m getting top surgery in December or January and I need 8k.

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Ever since I was a little kid I used to pray every night to wake up the next day and be a boy. My family made fun of me, they thought it was cute and just a joke, that I was destined to be a tomboy. I spent my childhood scraping my knees, collecting lightning bugs and turtles, and fishing with the boys- none of those things make me a man, but they did help make me the one I am today. As of July, I’ve been on testosterone for 2 years and it has done so much for me physically and mentally that I’ve been able to retire my daily lexapro prescription and switch to an as needed medication for (an unrelated to transness) cPTSD diagnosis. However amazing testosterone is, what it cannot do is shrink the size of my chest so I feel like my outside matches my inside.

I have found a surgeon, Dr Whitehead, at Lenox hospital in the east village, who can and will do my top surgery exactly how I have dreamed my body would look. My nipples will remain attached and I’ll have a double incision with liposuction, some tissue will be left behind to give me a chest that fits the shape of my fat body.

My only barrier to access is financial as I am self employed, I own and work at a cafe and there’s no PTO for me to recover. This has been a recurring issue for many health needs in my life as a life-long service worker.

Medicaid will cover the cost of surgery itself, however, the rent still needs to be paid as well as many other things.

Today, I am seeking $8,000 to cover the cost of my recovery time away from the shop so I can properly heal and have the results I’ve dreamed of since I hit puberty and my chest started to grow.

I am grateful for any donation of support and I hope to make this goal by December when my surgery may be.