I’m so uncomfortable asking for help but here we are. At the beginning of last month I was rushed to the hospital with the worst pain I’ve ever felt. In the ER, a team of amazing nurses loaded me with drugs and hooked me up to machines, and I did my best to answer a million health and insurance questions while I was writhing.

Through the fog of pain, all I could think was - even with insurance - how expensive this would all be. When I was wheeled back from a CT scan which revealed a huge, unpassable kidney stone, I asked my partner Allyson to “Please take a photo for the GoFundMe.”

I ended up spending two nights in the E.R. and was shuttled to a second hospital for a third night where the next morning they performed shockwave lithotripsy to shatter the stone into hundreds of fragments.

For the past six weeks, I’ve been logging in to my insurance provider’s portal almost daily to see how just how much I’d be on the hook for. I got the latest bill this morning: $9,685.99. And there’s more to come.

I’m a self-employed cartoonist and game designer and have insurance purchased through the ACA Marketplace. Without that, the bill would have been close to $70k!

I know everyone is dealing with a lot right now but if you are able to help, I would greatly appreciate it.