Surgical Expenses for Sami

Hi friends! I’m scheduled for my first stage of bottom surgery (metoidioplasty) on September 5th, 2018 with Dr. O’Brien-Coon at JHU. I’ve waited for this for so, so long—not gonna break out the oft-repeated diatribe on all my waiting and wanting and wishing—but this will be the final piece to fall into place. 

I’m coming up on six years into my medical transition, and other things in my life are pretty great: I have a boyfriend I want to spend the rest of my life with, a job I really like, a fantastic dog I co-parent, a community garden I help run, and incredible friends, family, and housemates. If you know me in person, you’re well aware that a very good portion of the past half-decade of my life has been spent near-obsessively (as a maybe unhealthy coping mechanism for my dysphoria!) researching and planning transition-related surgeries, largely in leading up to genital reconstruction surgery. I don’t know that I’ll have another opportunity to do this—things in my life right now are lined up in such a way to allow it to happen, and I’m damn worried that Trump will have put healthcare-related protections for trans people to bed by next year. 

I’ve put so much of my life on hold for this, and it’s time to close this chapter of my life and move on to the rest of it and, for the first time in my life, be truly at home in my own body.

If my advice has ever helped you, if you've ever swooned over a selfie of me, or if you just wanna do a great mitzvah--I'm asking you to donate. 

My total expenses will likely come up to around $10,000–however, I’m only asking for $3,000 to cover largely non-medical expenses and a little chunk of my out-of-pocket max. My insurance policy will cover things 100% after my out-of-pocket max is full, and when my policy was renewed in April that unfortunately changed from $5,500 to $7,350–but I’ll somehow figure out how to take care of the remaining $5,400, likely through a combination of charity pay and loans/payment plans. 

What I need your help with is everything else that I’ll need to pay for immediately—here’s a budget:

AirBNB for a week - 400
$ for my caretakers to take off work for a week to take care of me - 600
$ for while I’m unable to work (rent/utilities/etc) for 8 weeks - 1200
any medical supplies not covered by insurance - 200
gas and tolls for while in and traveling back and forth from Baltimore - 100
GoFundMe fees - 100
A little help with my big out-of-pocket max - 400

I’m imagining a life for myself post-op, post-transition, and dysphoria free, and it's almost more than I could ever hope for. You can help make it happen. 

xoxo,
Sami