Many of you know my friend, Katie. She is one of the most talented, resilient, creative, and caring people I know. She's been a pillar of strength through countless health complications, surgeries, and scares. After her double organ transplants a few years ago, she shot into a new level of joie de vivre - riding motorcycles, exploring photography, and traveling to connect with Mother Nature. Nothing stops her!

Now, she needs our hand through a tricky life transition.

In the past couple of weeks, she’s lost vision in one eye due to a serious infection and retinal detachment involving internal bleeding and scar tissue. She’s working closely with doctors and will need surgery; right now there are still a lot of unknowns. At this point, it’s unclear how much vision she will regain, and doctors are focused on trying to save and stabilize what they can.

Katie requires multiple emergency eye surgeries; but even then, full vision returning is uncertain/not guaranteed, and the vision in her other eye is not great. The surgeon she has been referred to is all the way in Miami and costs more than $1K for a first appointment. Katie is bravely standing at the beginning of a new and unpredictable journey with limited vision, and needs our help to usher her through.

It may take a while for her to find her footing, adjust to her new sight, then find and move forward in a new lifestyle that supports her new needs. As a self-employed hairstylist, she doesn’t have paid time off, and her income has already been significantly impacted. While she is receiving some disability, it’s not enough to cover basic expenses, including rent for her salon space and living costs during recovery.

We are asking for help to cover medical expenses, lost income, and essential bills while she focuses on healing and protecting her vision.

If you’re able to donate or share, it truly means more than we can express. Thank you for supporting her during this time. Let's show her that her strength extends past herself, and is reflected back to her by her community.

Here's a link from Katie's YouTube Channel ✨️

Katie & Chris at Zion & The Narrows Short

"I would like to beg you, dear Sir, as well as I can, to have patience with everything unresolved in your heart and to try to love the questions themselves as if they were locked rooms, or books written in a very foreign language. Don't search for the answers, which could not be given to you now, because you would not be able to live them. And the point is, to live everything. Live the questions now. Perhaps then, someday far in the future, you will gradually, without even noticing it, live your way into the answer."

-Rainer Maria Rilke