Hey y’all, I’m Heather. First, let me start by saying that it’s taken a lot to get me to the point to ask for help. I’m a very proud person, who has always valued my independence and has never been one to ask for help. In fact, I’m used to being the helper and the fixer for everyone else. I also feel like individual fundraising is widely overused, especially for the wrong reasons. With that being said, it is truly soul-crushing and embarrassing for me to now be asking for help.

For the last 10 plus months, I have progressively gotten sicker. I have every specialist you can imagine on my care team. I've spent more time in the hospital, getting scans, biopsies, procedures, and labs in the last 10 months than I have in my entire life. Considering I was born with congenital heart issues and had my fair share of hospitalizations, that’s saying something.

I was recently discharged from a week-long hospital stay that required me to get a heart catheterization, which determined that my heart condition is much worse than we feared. With significant heart failure and pulmonary hypertension, on top of my already repaired aorta. It took all of my specialists pointing fingers at each other while my family and work family advocated for me to even get that done. In addition to my heart issues, I have also been diagnosed with autoimmune disorders, a thyroid disorder that will likely result in removal/meds and multiple blood/bone marrow disorders that are still in the process of being correctly diagnosed. I left the hospital on 14 new medications, a bone marrow biopsy in my near future, multiple additional test/procedures coming up, and life-changing diagnoses. In this time, my husband and I have completely depleted our entire HSA account, our sick/PTO time, and the max amount of my 401k we can access. In the meantime, I have become sicker and sicker while fighting for answers and unable to work my normal 3 days a week. My husband works as much overtime as he possibly can, which means he doesn’t get to be bedside with me as much as he’d like. As you can imagine, even with insurance that I pay quite a bit of money for, we have gotten further and further behind on our bills. I will now be on an extreme amount of lifelong medications, while also still having many procedures and biopsies to undergo. All of this, my insurance covers a small fraction of. We are now behind on our house payment, car payment, utilities, and just basic necessities are hard to afford. I’m having to pick and choose between which part of my health to focus on at one time because it's all become way too much to afford.

I’ve dedicated my life to taking care of others. I work alongside some of the best healthcare professionals that advocate for me so much. I genuinely enjoy what I do for a living. It’s one of the few things in life that give me purpose.

As you can imagine, I feel like I’m drowning in debt with no way out and this has taken a major toll on my mental health. I am now on more medications than most people twice my age. I am also now enrolled in a medical trial, which I am so thankful for. My insurance covers a very small percentage of all of this. We are behind on every bill that we have due to losing half of our income. I have many appointments and procedures coming up that I have no idea how I am going to pay for. Making matters worse, I have the added stress of possibly losing everything we have, including our home.

For me, asking for any kind of help is the worst thing ever. I’m a proud person who has always taken pride in the fact that I have been the helper/fixer for everyone else. It’s embarrassing, it breaks my pride, and it makes me feel completely useless. With that being said, this is me, asking for any and all kinds of help. I would greatly appreciate anything that anyone can do to help us. We will forever be indebted to those that can help. I just want to get back to me, I want to find my purpose again. I want to live a life I’m happy with and get back to the things that make me happy. I don’t know how to be the person I am right now. I don’t know how to not be able to fix my issues. I don’t know how to not be the person who powers through. I’ve always prided myself on my strength and perseverance, my ability to conquer anything life throws at me. For the first time in my entire life, I no longer recognize the woman looking back at me. I no longer feel strong and resilient. I desperately want to find that woman again and get back to being the mother, wife, aunt, daughter, sibling, and friend that I have always been. Making this GoFundMe has been so hard for me, but I would really appreciate any help I can get.

Thank you all for taking the time to read this, and for any help you can offer. We also appreciate any prayers we can get during this time.