Support Kat's Journey to Health and Healing

Hi, my name is Kat & I very much appreciate you taking the time to read my story. In early 2023, I began experiencing severe health issues, & I was eventually diagnosed with Inflammatory Bowel Disease, Ulcerative Colitis, and Endometriosis. I began working with a team of specialists to put together a treatment plan. I had to do a lot of trial & error trying to find medication that would work for me, & that my insurance would cover. While the medications have certainly helped, they also come with a lot of difficult side effects. It has been an exhausting, painful experience. I never expected to become chronically ill, to wake up every day in pain, & the grief has been overwhelming. Throughout this unbelievably difficult journey, I have continued to work because my husband Matt & I could not live on his income alone. For the past year, I have been in survival mode…hanging on tight to the rollercoaster & doing my best to make it through each day. My quality of life has deteriorated to the point that I have not been able to function because I have continued to use everything in me to make it through the workdays, & that has taken all I have. Due to not having the ability or time to rest & heal, my health has continued to decline. My world has become so small, & I have felt so hopeless for so long. I have learned to live with immense pain and illness every day because I have felt there was no other option that would allow me & Matt to keep our home, & keep some semblance of a life together. This has been the most difficult time in my life. I am so grateful for Matt, because he has comforted me, taken care of me, & worked so incredibly hard to take care of everything.

After so long spent not living, only surviving, I have become completely broken down. It has become increasingly hard to make it through my workdays, & the stress of trying to hold down a full-time job has only made my health worse. Last week, Matt & I made the incredibly hard & terrifying decision to have me take a leave of absence & file a short-term disability claim, which we are hoping will be approved. We realized that I will never be able to heal & become well if I continue to push my body through the pain & the fatigue I experience daily. I will never see remission without being able to truly rest and put the small amount of energy I do have towards recovery. I am just so exhausted & drained…I have nothing left in me. This is the only hope & the only chance I have to become well enough to live some sort of meaningful life again.

Although the decision to take a leave of absence is the right choice, it is also incredibly stressful & so scary. I have exhausted all paid time off & I am now without any income. & we cannot live on Matt’s income alone. Once my short-term disability (if it is approved) begins, I will receive a portion of my regular income, but it will still not be enough when we are drowning in medical debt and have bills to pay. Also, there is a wait period before I would begin to receive funds from insurance, & as of right now we are not sure how long that wait period will be. So, we are in limbo at the moment, & I have no income, & my physical & mental health continue to deteriorate. As hard as it is to admit…we need help. We need community & support. & the best support we can receive right now is financial support. We will use any funds that we receive to pay our bills, pay for medications, and to keep us afloat. Since our health insurance is through my employer, we are not sure what will happen & whether or not we will be able to keep insurance during this time. My hope is that I will be able to return to work after this leave, but I cannot anticipate how long it will take for me to reach remission, or at least become well enough to be able to work. These are incurable diseases that I will have for the rest of my life, but they are treatable. This is all so overwhelming & so difficult for both Matt & I. We have done our very best at maintaining life since I became ill, but unfortunately our best is not enough right now.

If you have read this far, thank you so much. Any amount given will help us keep our life together, & will lessen the extreme stress we are under right now. As someone who has always taken the role of the “helper” for other people in my life, it feels so strange to ask for help. However, we can no longer keep our heads above water without help from our friends & our community.

Thank you so, so much.

-Kat & Matt