The short version:

My best friend Celina has severe complications from under-treated Type 1 Diabetes, including total blindness in one eye, partial blindness from retinopathy in the other eye, advanced chronic kidney disease, and dangerously high blood pressure. She can't afford the treatments she needs to maintain her vision, see her doctors about her kidneys, or purchase her insulin and other medical supplies. I don't believe that she will survive without help.

The long version:

This is Celi.

She's smart and funny. Weird and silly. Talented, kind. She's my best friend.

And she's also, to put it plainly, too poor to live.

Practically everyone has a sob story. It's sort of our unifying feature as humans, I think: struggle. We struggle to make ends meet. We struggle to meet expectations, to grow, to learn, to survive. We even struggle to deny that we're struggling; we go out of our way to maintain appearances, to put on a brave face and say we're "fine". Anything but admit that we need help.

My best friend Celi has long since surpassed the phase where she could deny that she was struggling. She needs help, and as much as I wish I could give her all she needs, as much as I wish I could take some of her burden, it's beyond my means. Frankly, I'd argue it's beyond any one person's means.

Please let me tell you about Celi.

Celi was born in 1997 in Gwinnett County, Georgia, as Celina, although I've been calling her Celi since I met her eight years ago. We met while gaming, and we hit it off almost instantly. We would spend our time exploring our love of video games, trading recipes and hair secrets, arguing politics. We'd have uncomfortable but meaningful discussions, encourage each other to be better and do better, as people. As I said earlier, she's funny, smart, talented, sweet - what's not to like?

What I didn't know at the time was that Celi was very sick, and had been for over a decade.

Celi was diagnosed with Type 1 Diabetes when she was eight years old. Type 1 Diabetes (T1D) is very treatable, provided one has access to the necessary healthcare. Growing up in a financially and emotionally tumultuous family of six, Celi had only sporadic access to insulin for most of her formative years. With inconsistent treatment, her T1D slowly devolved, eventually causing hypertension, neuropathy, vision impairment, and kidney disease.

But Celi is a fighter. She's strong, self-reliant, and resilient. And, like many of us, she wasn't yet ready to admit she needed help.

So, life went on.

Two years ago, Celi appeared to be holding it together well enough. She was working 70 hour weeks, so we didn't get to talk much, but she was finally able to afford food, transportation, and most importantly healthcare; things seemed promising. Then, in April of 2023, at 26 years old, she had a severe Transient Ischemic Attack, or TIA (essentially a small stroke), forcing her to abruptly leave her job. For a year after that life-changing event, she was hospitalized at least once per month with repeated TIAs, while doctors prescribed a bevy of expensive medications - some effective, some not. The official diagnoses came as severe hypertension and advanced chronic kidney disease.

After what could only be described as a hellish year, Celi still hadn't given up. She started 2024 with optimism, ready for a fresh start. Unfortunately, it didn't last long.

In February of 2024, Celi got very ill very quickly; her eye was in severe pain and she found it hard to stand for more than a few seconds at a time. Just two days after the onset of symptoms, Celi was diagnosed with glaucoma and a rare eye disease that quickly rendered her completely blind in her right eye.

By all accounts, Celi recovered quickly; she was back to cracking jokes, crocheting hats, and engaging in political commentary in no time. But she's my best friend, and she'd lost half her vision in a period of days. I knew she wasn't okay.

In an attempt to take her mind off of her failing health (and also to celebrate my own birthday in August), my family and I saved up to fly Celi out to stay with us in California. This was meant to be a vacation of sorts, a way for her to relax and unwind; but while she was here, she became more and more ill. By October, her vision was all but gone, she couldn't eat or drink without throwing up, she was bleeding profusely without cause, and was cognitively much slower than I had ever seen her. I felt completely helpless as I took her to emergency room after emergency room, only to be told that she was fine, that the symptoms would pass, that her numbers were normal for someone with chronic kidney disease and advanced diabetes.

But the symptoms didn't go away, and Celi didn't improve. And, after a horrible weekend during which I took her to three separate hospitals in three days, the ER at Kaiser Permanente finally agreed to admit her. At Kaiser, it was discovered that she was having a stroke in the back of her brain, while also in Diabetic Ketoacidosis, a deadly complication of diabetes in which the body produces ketones that turn the blood acidic. By the time she was admitted, her blood sugar was over 700, and her body was shutting down.

She remained in hospital for nearly a week, and slowly, with proper treatment, she became herself again. I'll be forever grateful to those doctors and nurses who saved her life.

But, the experience had been traumatic and draining for both Celina and, admittedly, myself. Celi returned home a few weeks later with an acute focus on getting better in any way she could. While the beginning of 2025 saw some of her health values improve, things took (another) turn for the worse in April, when she very suddenly had black spots in her vision. Mortified at the thought of losing vision in her one seeing eye, she immediately went to see an ophthalmologist, who informed her that she had a hemorrhage in her eye from diabetic retinopathy (deterioration of the retina caused by diabetes), and would have to take immediate action to stop the bleeding and save her vision. A day and a half later, Celi began a course of treatment getting Anti-VEGF injections in her left eye.

Fast forward to now, June of 2025:

Celi can no longer pretend to be okay. Her kidneys are failing and need urgent treatment. She requires injections in her eye every four weeks to maintain her vision. Her blind eye is in constant pain, and requires expensive eye drops to make said pain manageable. She has floaters in her good eye from the bleeding. She's unable to find and sustain a job, as she's effectively blind and can barely stand for longer than a few minutes due to the kidney disease. I helped her file for disability, but she was denied on account of not being entirely blind. And all the while, she's trying to cover the costs of transportation, doctor's visits, specialist visits, her insulin, her glucose monitor, and a slew of medications. She does anything and everything she can to earn money, but she cannot keep up with the costs. My family and I give her whatever we can afford, and we too cannot keep up with the costs.

This is where (and why) I ask for your help. Please donate to save my best friend's vision, and her life, so that she may continue to be that smart, funny, weird, silly, talented, and kind person I love. No one deserves to live this way simply because they can't afford the treatment. Please help, if you can.

What this campaign pays for:

-Anti-VEGF injections, to preserve vision in her seeing eye

-Laser Photocoagulation to be performed this year for the diabetic retinopathy

-Transportation to and from the hospital where the procedures will be performed, which is about an hour away from Celi's home

-Monthly visits to: an endocrinologist, a nephrologist, a retina specialist, an ophthalmologist, and Celi's PCP

-Medications and lab work, including prednisolone drops, latanoprost, Omnipod 5 refills, Humalog, and many more (feel free to contact me with questions)

-Medical bills from several hospitals in Georgia and California (it's unlikely Celi will ever be able to pay these down; the bill for her week at Kaiser alone was over $100,000. But she needs help making minimum payments.)

Any help is greatly appreciated. Thank you.