Hi, my name is Angie and I want to tell you about my friend Amber. Upon leaving her abusive husband in May 2019, she re-located back to Bryan, Ohio, where she is still a legal resident.

In 2006, while in undergraduate school at Bowling Green State University working towards her Special Education degree, she was diagnosed with a benign brain cyst. Fast forward to today and she has had 19 brain surgeries, with the most recent being in May 2020 at Cleveland Clinic. She has had more than 35 abdominal surgeries and countless illnesses - including meningitis four times and pancreatitis - and countless hospitalizations.

Amber is a special education teacher with multiple degrees and works hard to teach children with disabilities such as learning and those with visual impairments, blindness, and deafblindness. While unemployed since December 2020, she has worked to get her health back on track, spending a majority of her time in/near Cincinnati where all but two of her providers are located. In doing so she took on several projects, such as organizing for two homes being painted in Bryan to help two residents avoid legal action.

Amber recently accepted a new job offer, beginning in August, which expedited the time line for two necessary surgeries. The first (abdominal) has been scheduled for July 15 and the second surgery’s (spinal related) date is still being worked out. Less than a week ago, Amber found out that 40% of her July 15th will NOT be covered by Medicaid. I know she is doing everything to cut costs to be able to try and get money together by her JULY 1ST DEADLINE, but it is such a huge feat. I want to surprise her and see if we can rallying around her like she tries to do for so many others.

In all of her surgeries and difficulties, Amber has never received help with paying her surgical or hospitalization bills from outside people— over half a million dollars in debt. Due to her recent efforts for others in our community, she does not want to ask for help now either. Let’s try to ease part, if not all, of the burden of what she needs to get her surgery on July 15 (so she can focus on healing before she starts her new job).