A long awaited update:

On Wednesday April 2nd I had surgery to remove two kidney stones from my left kidney in preparation for bottom surgery. I woke up that Friday morning feeling awful. I was so cold and had the shakes. Levi took my temp at 103 but I just assumed it was because I was under lots of blankets. I took some Tylenol and rode it out but was still feeling crummy in the evening so I called the nurse line. Since I had a fever, the nurse recommended I be seen. So at 8pm we were off to the emergency room. 

After a full sepsis work up, I was admitted to Community North hospital with a gnarly kidney infection. Urine cultures were taken and I settled in. Early evening on Saturday April 5th I started having chest pain. Shortly after my left arm got cold and my fingers started to feel numb. I told my nurse and she dismissed the chest pain as gas. This is a whole long thing but essentially they finally got an EKG and after an hour and a half I was hastily admitted to the heart hospital for a heart attack and taken to the cath lab. 

Every day since then has been a challenge. I was forced to stop taking my ADHD medication as a result of the heart attack. I’ve been doing cardiac rehab for about a month. I’ve had to start new medications that make me feel tired and sluggish. 

I’ve missed so much work. My job is safe thanks to FMLA, but any time I miss is unpaid. 

Any help you can offer means the world to me. I’m getting so close to surgery and I am so excited to move into this final part of my physical transition. I’ve booked our Airbnb and am nailing down travel plans. 

I can’t wait for this next chapter. Thanks for all your support on this journey. 

TL;DR—help me cover expenses for bottom surgery! Anything you can contribute will be so helpful!

Hey y’all. I’m Emerson (he/him) and I am so excited to have finally scheduled my last step in my medical transition—bottom surgery. This surgery is performed in multiple stages and I have stage one scheduled for July 10th, 2025.

I am so grateful to have health insurance that covers this type of care, but my employer doesn’t offer short term disability. My doctor has said to expect to take a minimum of 4 weeks off of work to recover. I’m preparing for up to 6 weeks, as the catheter won’t even come out until week 4.

I do have some PTO but because I have chronic kidney stones, I will have to have surgery to remove current stones before my bottom surgery. This will use up what little PTO I have, which means most of my recovery time will be unpaid.

My goal of $4000 will cover 6 weeks of unpaid time as well as expenses that come with having surgery out of state: transportation costs, Airbnb costs, food, pet care while we’re away, etc.

$4000 feels like a lot of money to ask for; I’ve never been good at asking for financial help. Truly, anything you can contribute would be such a blessing to me in this journey.

If you’ve read this far, thank you so much. I cannot wait to finally have a body that aligns with my soul. Thank you for your help.