I am Danielle, and I have to have a hysterectomy in June. If you know me well, you'd know that I'd rather set myself on fire than ask for help, but since the country is already on fire, it seems like a good time.

I have fibroids that are too large to perform surgery on without having a hysterectomy. Fibroids are non-cancerous tumors that grow in your uterus and can cause pain and make you infertile. For me, they made my periods last half of the month, every month, and made life and work hard to maintain. A lot of the time, I wasn't able to.

Now, before you already stopped paying attention to what you're reading because it has to do with women's health, fibroids are the number one cause of infertility. Some of us aren't able to choose whether we want to have kids or not. If I wanted to keep my uterus, I would not be able to safely carry a child.

The past few years in LA have been the opposite of chill. If you know, you know. Financially, it has been very difficult to recover after the pandemic, the strikes, and our apartment being affected by the Eaton Fire. This GoFundMe will cover my medical costs and my out-of-work recovery for 6-8 weeks to help with my rent and bills.

If behind every great man is a great woman, then 10 feet behind her is her reproductive health. These issues happen every day to all your friends and family, but we never talk about them because that is our system. We never learn about fibroids, endometriosis, or PCOS, even in our health classes taught to us in elementary school by our male gym teachers. We are all used to silently suffering our illnesses and having to cover our costs until we make GoFundMe's.

I know that this time period is more expensive than anyone knows what to do with. I understand and empathize. There's no pressure to donate. If you want to pass it along, that'd be amazing.

Thanks for being with me, and thanks for taking the time to read this. I love you all.