Rachel's Health Crisis Fund

Hello everyone. I am swallowing my pride that I begin to write this for myself from my bed in the hospital. As most people close to me will know I am no stranger to hospitals since my kidney failure diagnosis in 2020. I am currently in the hospital again due to having a seizure the morning of Wednesday September 11, 2024. This is the second seizure I have had since being diagnosed with kidney failure. In the last few weeks, I have suffered from pulmonary edema, brought on by hypertension that caused my body's fluids to back up into my lungs and heart. The medical team thought that it was all cleared up, and discharged me from the ICU, however it definitely was not resolved and resulted in me coughing up blood and having multiple hospital visits last week.

Fast forward to now, having a seizure Wednesday morning resulted in being readmitted to the hospital to monitor me and figure out why I’m continuing to experience complications from my illness. As a background, prior to my diagnosis of kidney failure, I had three years of health issues where I was getting sicker and sicker with no assistance from doctors. At the time I didn't even have a family doctor. I finally came back to New Brunswick and the end of 2020 where my family lives in hopes of staying with them and getting a doctor to listen to me.

While staying with my sister for a few days upon arrival, I experienced excruciating pain in my abdomen, and was admitted to a Fredericton hospital on November 3, 2020. I was in a critical state, being admitted to ICU immediately. I was in a coma for three days, only to wake up to find out that my kidneys were failing and I was blind, as well as I had a plural effusion, lesions in my brain and a brain bleed, pneumonia, pancreatitis and a pancreatic cyst which needed to be drained with a tube in my stomach. The kidney failure was brought on by a thiamine (vitamin B1) deficiency. My critical state was stabilized during the six weeks I had to stay in hospital, but the thiamine deficiency was also responsible for my loss of eyesight. This was life-altering for me.

I fought to go back to work finding a job as a newly blind person, and found employment as a youth support worker, however it was far too stressful an environment for both my physical and mental health, and I was forced to leave that job. Since then, I have been trying to find other suitable employment that I can do despite my disabilities, and have been supported by EI sickness benefits, but those have now run out. This has left me depending solely on my boyfriends' personal income, which is proving to be unfair to him as he is also living off disability and has children to support.

Every time I start to take one step forward in this tumultuous time, it feels like life kicks me three steps back. I'm struggling to gain any ground as I work is scarce and my health constantly puts me in a precarious situation. I am putting this out here in hopes that even one person will see this and understand the struggle I am going through, how exhausted and defeated I feel, and how much I am trying to get back on my feet and do something with my life, despite the cards I’ve been dealt.

While I continue to fight for my health, including hopefully having kidney transplant surgery, my situation is always evolving and new problems arise, like these seizures. New medications get ordered but I struggle to afford them because I don't have work benefits. Any amount at all would help and would be appreciated more than you could imagine. I don't come from a family with many options to turn to, so I am left to do this all on my own, along with the help of my friends and kind people like you. My boyfriend is being as supportive as a he can be but we are at our wits end. We are a kind and loving family and your money would be going to a good place, I sincerely promise you that.

-Rachel Graham