Help pay for the surgery that saved Emily’s life

Hi, my name is Jenna and I’m fundraising to help my best friend Emily pay emergency medical bills that saved her life.

Emily Braswell is a young visual artist that lives in Atlanta, GA. For those that don’t know Emily, she is extremely talented and passionate. She paints, makes installations, furniture, sculptures and is a self taught graphic designer. Emily is known for her art work, but also her unique personality that is full of humor and compassion.

Last Saturday, Emily suddenly had a pain in her abdomen. She laid down to rest hoping it would go away, but every time she shifted her body in the bed the pain reoccurred. It quickly got worse and she began to have pressure in her chest with every breath. She got up and noticed she felt very dizzy. Her vision was tunneling, so she laid back down and called me. She said she was having trouble breathing, so I immediately rushed over to her apartment.

Shortly after I got there, she tried to stand up and immediately fell over. That’s when I knew I had to get her to the emergency room as soon as possible. I got her into her desk chair and rolled her towards the door. I saw from the daylight that her skin was tinted yellow. I got urgent help carrying her down the stairs and into the car.

When we arrived at the closest hospital, they couldn’t get her pulse, so they quickly took her in. At this point, her vital signs were shockingly bad, so a whole crew of the ER team were frantically hooking her up to get blood, an IV and to a machine that monitored her heart rate. They did an ultrasound and a CT scan which revealed she had over two liters of blood in her stomach. An ovarian cyst had ruptured and caused severe internal bleeding. They had to perform an exploratory laparotomy to stop the bleeding and remove anything necessary to save her life.

Thankfully, the surgery went smoothly and she spent the next four days in the recovery center while they monitored her blood. The doctor said that the unusual amount of bleeding was caused by the cyst being near a major blood vessel and that luckily she will be eventually back to normal with lots of rest these next couple of weeks. She’s now been discharged from the hospital and is slowly on her way to recovery.

It’s a miracle she survived this unexpected medical crisis. There is a lot to be grateful for, but unfortunately she is stuck with an over $100k bill, that as a freelance artist, is life changing for her. Her family and close friends are all going to put as much as we can towards this to help her, but I wanted to open it up for anyone who knows of her art and creative contributions or her online presence, or even a stranger who can empathize with her situation.

I am just so relieved that she survived and really appreciate any donations to help her get this bill down to something reasonable that will not burden her financially long term. For those that know Emily, they know she has been an exceptionally hard worker her whole life, she is frugal and lives within her means. Please give what you can to support her, thank you.