<div>My name is Charles Mason III; I am an artist, curator and educator in Baltimore, MD. And for the last 23 years I have been battling kidney disease. To be honest it still feels like a shock for me to say it aloud. I haven’t once hidden it, but I also haven’t willingly discussed it for some time now. It was only until February of this year after being told by my doctor that my kidney function had gone down to 10%, that I knew I needed to start telling my friends, family and colleagues what for some would be new information about what I had been going through for so long.
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<div>At 10 years old I was diagnosed with chronic kidney disease (CKD). For much of my life I have been able to maintain my health with this “invisible disease” on my own. In fact, it wasn’t until I penned this letter that many of my friends knew.
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<div>I want to live. This requires a new level of vulnerability for me, to ask you, my loved ones, friends, and community to donate funds to cover my expenses.
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<div>$60,000 will help to provide me with peace of mind. Anticipated costs:
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<div>Medical expenses not covered by insurance
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<div>Rent
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<div>Food
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<div>Care assistance
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<div>Currently I struggle with fatigue and anemia as side effects of CKD, along with the anxiety of not knowing how I will make ends meet. The surgery can happen any day now and I need to prepare for the long recovery.
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<div>For a minimum of 8-weeks post surgery, I won’t be able to create. I am a self-employed artist, for the last five years my studio practice has sustained my livelihood. Due to my health that is now in jeopardy. It is likely that the cadence and capacity of my work will be affected for up to a year.
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<div>As I’ve battled with this disease, I’ve always known that in the future I would need a kidney transplant. There was no way that I would have guess that this future would be 2024. Having known that my function over the years would decreasingly get lower, when I was told about what my numbers were at the top of the year, while also being informed that I could no long wait on kidney transplant evaluation, my life in so many words started to feel chaotic to say the least.
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<div>I went through the intense process of letting any and everyone within my community know through emails, facetimes, text messages and phone calls what I was going through. It was one of the toughest things I’ve ever had to do. It didn’t stop there though, I also knew that I would need to do an ASK, a big ask to my greater community to see if anyone or anyone they knew would even be interested in potentially donating a kidney. I penned a letter, that took about a month to write for this ask. This was then again one of the hardest things I had to do. To basically be completely vulnerable because without doing so I’d risk losing out on potential help and donation.
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<div>There’s a sort of two step process. You go in for evaluation, this is where they check you, check all the numbers, take blood samples and create a whole package that then gets sent to a committee to see if I match the qualifications. Once this happens I then will be able to get placed on a transplant list. Then there’s the second process or even a 1a, where you do a big ask. This helps to find a living donor who is healthy enough and goes through their own process to make sure they’re able to donate. Through all this I am constantly trying to make sure that I find some way to keep moving forward.
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<div>This moving forward process is where I must again find the space to be vulnerable and ask for help within my community. This Gofund is to help me cover my expenses and any anticipated costs that will come with this surgery. I am a self-employed artist and my entire lively hood comes from this. During my recover I will be in the hospital for at least 4-7 days while also spending another 6-8 weeks recovering where I won’t even be able to drive a car. Transplants are a major surgery and to make sure that I am able to cover my rent, food and care I’ll need help.
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<div>Link to get tested and to learn more info about living donors
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<div><a href="https://www.umms.org/ummc/health-services/transplant/kidney/living-donor" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener"><a href="https://www.umms.org/ummc/health-services/transplant/kidney/living-donor" target="_blank" class="" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer">https://www.umms.org/ummc/health-services/transplant/kidney/living-donor</a></a>
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<div><a href="https://ummclivingdonation.org" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener"><a href="https://ummclivingdonation.org/" target="_blank" class="" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer">https://ummclivingdonation.org/</a></a>
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