Help Stella and Jason Norris with Surgery Expenses

Hi friends!

I’m starting this Gofundme to help cover medical expenses for our dear friend Stella while she undergoes and recovers from an extremely time and money intensive surgery.

For those who may not be aware, Stella had breast surgery in December after months of repeated serious infections. The results of her many, many medical tests and pathology report made it clear that in order to mitigate future risk of infections and cancer, a double mastectomy would be needed.

In total, this will involve three surgeries. The big one will be the double mastectomy with immediate DIEP Flap reconstruction on Feb. 26th. It will involve 11 hours under general anesthesia, 4 days in the hospital, drains for weeks, 6-8 weeks of initial healing, and 4-5 months before returning to all her usual abilities—at which point she’ll be getting the third surgery, with more drains, etc. For more on the details of the surgery (and some beautiful prose), check out her blog post on it at strawintogold.substack.com/p/sojourn

These surgeries are no joke, and unfortunately, they’re going to have a big financial impact too. Because all of these medical interventions have fallen over two calendar years, that means there are two years of deductibles to meet before insurance starts covering in full. Their out of pocket healthcare expenses will end up being $15,000. And of course, Jason will have to take a significant amount of time off of work to help with recovery, so the reality (of this absurd country we live in) is, they need financial help to cover these expenses.

Fortunately, Stella and Jason have been so instrumental in cultivating an incredibly warm, connected, and supportive community around them, so I know that through that community (and its extensions), we have the means to help them through this incredibly shitty time, so that we can all get back to carrying on, shenanigans, and general merriment.

But for now - Stella and Jason would appreciate any amount, big or small, that you can help out with. And whether you can or can’t support financially, sharing this campaign through your social media channels, and directly with folks not on social media is a really big help too.

Thank you so much for helping our friends.