Like a lot of us, a piece of my younger life was time I spent without the clearest or the most cost-effective access to medical help, and I have a heart problem rearing into my adulthood like Trump smashing buttons on his phone. Based on tests that have taught me so much, one of the pathways for blood to pass through my circulatory system is currently hitting a big “oops”: severe mitral valve regurgitation. It's unlikely that I’ll see a scenario where my heart gets better on its own. In fact, it’s probably never worked right.


What likely can happen – if 2020 ain’t totally wasted – is a surgical solution that stops my (wildly out of control) heart murmur from going any farther down its uncomfortable path. I’ve taken all the steps to make the operation the doctors are promising to be helpful happen THIS MONTH. Open-heart will fix things right where I need to fix things: where the blood starts carrying oxygen to all my systems. My quality of life will improve. It’s possible for me to get this done very, very soon because of many reasons—I’m relatively healthy, physically and mentally. I’m negative for the coronavirus. I’ve seen what capitalism can do to our bodies and the bodies of people we love, and correspondingly I’ve never relied on the natural passage of time in exploitive circumstances to miraculously cure health problems or force us to accept pain as a payoff for existing. THINGS HAPPEN FOR A REASON.

Since we’re talking about resources, I also want to acknowledge that I have many accesses provided, a minority of which I didn’t always have. Among those are workable leave policies at work that will let me stay completely at home after surgery. I’ve also heard commitments from my employer to keep medical benefits in place for three months, minimum. And every avenue I count on to permit me to make informed, first-world decisions about my congenital heart weakness (even in the midst of a global pandemic) is my privilege manifested.

And I want to tell you that, even with all this, even with how fortunate I am to be insured, that I’m in for some imminent rough patches. America is being played on a harder difficulty level right now, and this GoFundMe is launching because of challenges ahead of me related to follow-up care, transportation, and the difficulties of being a worker in an able-bodied industry (or at least one that favors the young and able-bodied drastically). I am asking for your support to be safe after surgery. Please give what you can and expect me to support you if the chance someday arises unexpectedly.


I have never spoken about people with what we’ve now made it normal to refer to as “underlying conditions” in the tone of dismissal that should disgust each and everyone online today. I don’t believe that anyone’s health and body needs to be a permanent hardship to them unless society wants to be an accomplice making it bad! Finally, I know that I have fought persistently over the years for those who were not seen as worthwhile. That work should continue!

If I don’t stop my mitral valve from breaking down, I can’t be a fighter in those spaces anymore. That would be so sad for me. #facts

… So that’s my GoFundMe, everybody. Whether you give or not, thank you for taking a moment of timeout with me to see how many different intertwined currents make up my journey on this planet, and how everyone’s already contributing just by being here. Ramadan Mubarak to you all, and make this May Day special! Get yourself + all of us free…


Summary of what I will be doing starting ASAP:

- Insulating myself from further COVID-19 exposure and educating my network of mutual care
- Spending several days put to sleep or recovering at Kaiser Permanente Los Angeles Medical Center
- Having a Kaiser surgeon attempt to work inside my heart
- (If he succeeds:) probably starting to use blood thinners, maybe forever
- Adjusting to my new bodily state
- Life’s next adventure


I have too many plans to tell you all of them here, but those are the teasers!

To learn more about mitral valve replacement and repair:
kp.org encyclopedia