Our friend Kristen (Kia to some of us) needs your support! She has touched so many people with her art, creativity, humor, professional technical prowess, and just being a fantastic human — now we want to help her.

Over the past year, Kristen has faced some tough health challenges. She’s been dealing with migraines, brain fog, and ongoing anemia, and more recently, a minor surgery led to complications when an infection caused sepsis. She’s been in and out of the hospital for the last 4 weeks, dealing with the infection and hemorrhaging.

During this time, an MRI revealed two slow-growing, non-cancerous brain tumors (for the nerds: sphenoid wing meningiomas in the medial cranial fossa). One tumor is located at her hippocampus, which handles much of memory processing. Both are situated behind her eyes, which is affecting her visual processing. This explains many of the difficult symptoms she’s been battling over the last year.

Kristen has named her tumors collectively: The Angry Techno Viking

(raaaar I press on kia’s brain graaaaah)

She hasn’t lost her sense of humor!

To fight this, Kristen will need at least three major surgeries.

Because hormones can cause these tumors to grow, Kristen will first have a hysterectomy in December.

Once she’s fully healed from that surgery, her doctors will plan the next steps: two separate brain surgeries to remove the meningiomas.

There may need to be additional treatments after the surgeries.

It’s a scary time. It will be a long year of surgeries and recoveries. Kristen is facing it with her usual dry humor, but the worry is real. She has two kids at home as a single, primary-care parent. She can’t work, is receiving disability payments, and is currently on COBRA.

We’re trying to raise $40,200.

This will pay for:

* Insurance deductibles for both 2025 and 2026: $13,200

* In-patient hospital and imaging co-pays: $12,000 (at minimum)

* In-home care after each major surgery : $15,000

* Out-of-network medical costs for some of her surgeries: $3000 (at minimum)

If you’ve worked with Kristen, admired her letterpress and prints, been in awe of her creative talent, danced with her at an underground SF rave in the 90s, shuttled kids beside her at school, had her photograph you, or are just touched by her challenges, please consider giving, $20, $50, $72, $100 or more.

Every bit helps relieve some worry and stress for her as she takes care of her kids and gets through this next year! Thank you for your care and generosity.

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Who’s running this fundraiser? I’m Kyra, a friend of Kristen since I was 20 and she was 19. She got me my first job out of college in San Francisco and then my second after that. She’s been a steadfast friend, cheerleader, and instigator in my life ever since. I live far away from her and her two fabulous kids in Santa Barbara, so this is how I’m supporting her and her family through these diagnoses and treatments. Thanks so much for reading and considering supporting my dear friend and this amazing woman!