Support Katie's Fight Against Aggressive Endometriosis

Hi, my name is Heather Weber. I'm an ordained Assemblies of God minister, and I want to help my friend, Katie Highsmith, get the life-saving medical care that she needs. Would you take a moment to read her story?

Katie was diagnosed with endometriosis at age 14. I know what you’re thinking: That’s the disease that affects women’s pregnancies and fertility, right? For many women, YES. For a small percentage of women like Katie, NO.

Endometriosis can travel and spread around the body, affecting vital organs, wrapping around them, and squeezing so the disease becomes life-threatening.

Right now, Katie is experiencing the symptoms of what is likely “Stage IV pelvic endo recurrence, specifically on her kidneys/ureters.” That means the endometriosis and adhesions are likely growing on her urinary tract, digestive tract, and pelvis.

Katie has had eight previous surgeries since the age of 14 to address these same issues. There’s no clear indication as to why the endo and adhesions have grown back so aggressively the past two times, although it's possible that her 3 recent miscarriages, with fertility treatments and hormone fluctuations, could have contributed.

Right now she is experiencing debilitating pain, weakness, shortness of breath, and fatigue–all symptoms she experienced before. These symptoms worsen the longer it takes to have surgery, which is necessary to save her life, not to mention to be able to work and perform daily tasks.

The newest symptoms, and the most pressing concern, is that she is experiencing kidney and ureter pain and spasms. That, in turn, is causing severe fatigue, nausea, and blood pressure spikes, and is putting her in danger of kidney damage or losing a kidney.

With her aggressive disease in mind, God has led Katie and her husband AJ to make this next surgery (hopefully her last) a total hysterectomy. While a hysterectomy is NOT a cure for endometriosis, it will cure Katie's adenomyosis, and decrease the amount of inflammation and pain she experiences from menstrual cycles. Her medical team is extremely optimistic that this will be enough to reduce her adhesions, end the vicious cycle of almost yearly surgeries, and prevent further damage to her kidneys.

Katie and AJ are devastated to give up having a living biological child, but God has asked them to surrender that dream in trust and obedience so that they can immediately pursue the second way they've always wanted to build their family--adoption. God has given them a beautiful vision of their future children that has filled them with hope, strength, and determination to fight for the day they bring their kids home, and Katie's ability to be a healthy mom to those children. They are in awe of God's clarity, direction, peace, and hope with which He has sustained them during such a stressful, heartbreaking time, and feel honored to be part of God's greater Kingdom purpose being fulfilled through this grief and loss, and later, through joy and family.

The total hysterectomy along with removal of the growths can be done by a highly-specialized surgeon in St. Louis. However, insurance companies don't have a billing code for this highly specialized surgery, meaning Katie needs to pay the surgeon up-front whether or not insurance is willing to reimburse her for some of the fees in the future (in the past, they have not covered her surgeries).

What she needs:

Excision surgery and total hysterectomy with Dr. Patrick Yeung in St. Louis, MO, one of the top surgeons in the world for endometriosis excisions. The trip will last roughly 5 days (travel, pre-op, surgery, hospital stay, recovery, and travel home).

Recovery from these surgeries will be very intense for one month and require an additional 1-3 months until she can resume daily activities.

If you feel overwhelmed reading about all that is required, then you can imagine that Katie and her husband AJ have more on their plates than they can carry alone, including the expense of saving her life, which they cannot afford without help.

If you’ve read this far, I’m asking if you would join TEAM KATIE and donate to her medical, travel, and recovery fund, and please share this GoFundMe page so others can support her as well. If you want to follow her story, you can do that at her blog, God Wastes Nothing (godwastesnothing.substack.com).

Thank you for supporting her and AJ during this season.

Below is a breakdown of their expenses:

Medical costs:

$650 - Pre-op fee - not covered by insurance

$10,500 - Dr. Yeung surgery fee

$5,000 - out-of-network deductible for hospital due at surgery (another $6,000 billed later)

$420 - Pain medications for the next 2 months ($210 per month)

= $16,570 - total medical costs

Travel:

$500 - estimate for AJ/Katie flying to St. Louis

$400 - estimated cost of Airbnb or hotel in St. Louis for 5 days, must be recovery-friendly

$240 - Transportation costs while in St. Louis

$215 - Food while in St. Louis

$200 - Estimated GoFundMe fees

= $1,555 - total travel costs

The total cost to receive this surgery is $18,125, however Katie and AJ will be receiving a family loan in the amount of $10,000.

Goal of $8,125

$2,187.57 raised

$5,937.43 left to fundraise!