Please help with Angela’s emergency vision needs

Dear Friends and Family,

I sincerely wish I was sharing a success story with you, but due to severe, acute, and chronic illnesses, and financial struggles and debt due to my inability to work, I am putting aside the humbling vulnerability of asking for help and reaching out to you, my community, for that help. I am in dire straits, in an increasingly frightening situation and, as of this moment, I don’t know where else to turn. A friend offered to sponsor a GoFundMe for me, but, I thought, I am the one in need, and it feels most genuine that I be the one writing.

On top of my other chronic illnesses, my eyes suddenly need emergency medical help! I have what’s called Convergence Insufficiency, and, if left untreated, could result in needing an invasive, not always effective eye surgery with potential worse side effects. (Yikes! I’m already disabled enough)

About a month and a half ago, I woke up one morning and everything was blurry. This has impacted everything that requires vision, and makes my head feel like it’s bobbing all the time, which causes slight vertigo. I cannot drive because I cannot gauge, with depth of perception, the world around me. I cannot do even see well enough to do simple visual things. Right now, I am under a huge amount of duress, and in a desperate situation, because I have no money to live on, and haven’t had steady income since the start of my illness in 2005 and cannot afford any of the treatment options for my eyes. I do not qualify for disability or SSI. (SSDI disability is actually very hard to get. Most disabled people that you know do not qualify for it). Right now my mom has had to be my chauffeur to get me places, which is not easy on her. I have been proactive in contacting organizations that help with chronic illness financial woes, but often do not qualify for the specific requirements even though I have been severely chronically ill for 18 years. I have no back-up reserves, and I still need to live, to eat, to go to numerous doctors, and have continual tests and check-ups, to pay for expensive medicine that Medicaid doesn’t cover, to pay bills, etc. What your financial contribution would help me with: any eye examinations and glasses, plus subsequent eye therapy to fix the problem, which could take months – the eyes “forget” how to focus together and need to relearn through treatment. The doctor in town that specializes in this treatment is costly and does not take my state-funded insurance. After that, donations would greatly help paying for medicine I need, and other health issues not covered by insurance.

I need to be able to drive to keep my other ofttimes debilitating, devasting illness symptoms at bay. When my body allows, I go swimming and/or walking (even if it’s slow sloth walking) every day to keep the symptoms from getting worse. This is a very real and scary thing. I had Covid that impacted me and kept me in bed for 2.5 months this year and it set me back hugely with my breathing issues…and caused my diabetes glucose numbers to skyrocket. Not being able to exercise means becoming so ill I am bedbound and sometimes, over the years, near death. Some of you have been with me step by step through my illness journey and know how much it has greatly it has changed and impacted my life…resulting in unimaginable losses and unbearable symptoms. To have something else affecting my health on top of my everyday struggles is almost too much of a hardship for this little ol body to bear. I cannot afford to be housebound when I am not being forced to be by my breathing issues.

If you can find in it your heart to help me in any way, any little bit would help – anything. This would be a HUGE LIFESAVER for me.

Because it is not in my nature to ask for something without wanting to give something: if you contribute, I will send you a calming and restorative meditation recording combining mindfulness and somatic techniques. If you have worked with me as a meditation student or received a guided meditation from me before, this will be something different than you’ve previously heard. Just message me in fb messenger or email me AT [email redacted] and I’ll send a recording to you. My continual dream and hope are to have all my symptoms remit enough to be able to offer these restorative practices full-time and have my health issues be less of a burden .

One of my deepest values is generosity; I believe that it is community and connection that make our lives possible and resplendent, full and whole, and, if you, through your kindness and compassion, helped me, I would be so wholly thankful, and would pay your generosity forward in any way I am able.

If your circumstances do not allow you to contribute, please consider sharing the link to my GoFundMe with others on social media or email.

With great warmth and gratitude for you and your precious lives and any difficulties that might be presenting for you,

Thank you,

Strawberry/Angela/or any other way you know me