Hello

My name is Robert May. I’m 55 years old and I live in Charlotte North Carolina. Two years ago, the day after my 53rd birthday I packed up two suitcases and I jumped on the greyhound from New York and headed down south. 30 days later my kidneys failed. I have been struggling with severe hypertension and diabetes all of my adult life and it finally caught up to me. I was devastated and disappointed and I just wasn’t prepared for the world of dialysis.

It’s strange because I don’t know how to do anything but keep going. I get up every morning and keep trying my best to succeed in life. I work 10 hours a day driving for Uber. I come home I do my dialysis treatments 3- 4 times a week 3 ½ hours each treatment. And I go to school full time online and hopefully God willing I’ll graduate in 4 months with a bachelor’s degree in Audio Production. I believe in myself, but I can’t lie doing everything by myself Is becoming harder to do. every day it seems like there is a new hurdle to jump over and I’m finding it hard to stay optimistic when dialysis has me sidelined.

I lived in New York City all my life and I wanted a change of pace. I have always worked but the rat race of the big city was wearing me down. I saved my money during the pandemic, went back to school, and found an apartment in Charlotte North Carolina. In the two years since I moved here, I found a job, bought a car and, I managed to learn how to manage my dialysis treatments from home by myself from my wonderful support team at Fresenius Kidney Care. They have been a shining bright light for me. The nurses, doctors and technicians at that clinic have taught me how to literally save my life.

But now I’m struggling. I haven’t worked in over a month. Everything was going well until late last year in December when I started having complications with my access called a perm catheter which had got infected and had to be removed. This is when everything went downhill. The surgeon replaced the catheter with a fistula graft, and it hasn’t worked properly since he put it in. I have had numerous surgeries and procedures since December to try and correct the problems with the fistula that have caused me to miss many days of work. And since I can’t work, I can’t make money. I can’t pay my rent and I ended up falling behind on the car payments and finally they came and repossessed my car. Uber was perfect because I was able to work and make all of my medical appointments. Now I find myself with no vehicle and no way to make money. My family has been helping me but there is only so much they can do. I’m down here in in North Carolina by myself with no real support system. My rent is 20 days past due and I’m facing eviction. I don’t know how I’m going pay to it. My credit cards are maxed out. My bank account is negative and to make things worse I’m still having problems with the Fistula, it’s so frustrating.

Any funds donated will be used to get my rent paid and avoid eviction and get my car back from repossession so I can get back working Uber, even if it’s part time for now. I’m having an ultrasound next week to do the vein mapping so hopefully the surgeons can get this fistula graft in my arm working properly. My ultimate goal is to get on the list as a kidney recipient. I know I can do it I just need to keep fighting.

It’s funny I was ready to start my new life in a new town with a new change of scenery and finally take my life to the next level, then I got sick, really sick. Now I’m faced with the most challenging experience of my life. I have always been able to provide and take care of myself financially and for the first time in my life I find myself unable to work like I want to. Sure, I have been through rough times before, we all have. But I had always been able to bounce back and get back in the game. Maybe my thought process is a bit skewed, but my pride was telling me that I was supposed to rely on myself and not look to anyone for help.

So, after a long talk with my social worker at the dialysis clinic, she suggested that I start a GoFundMe campaign to get a little help while I wait for my application for disability benefits to get approved, find out what’s going on with this fistula, get it working right, and hopefully be able to start working again. At first, I was reluctant, but her argument was very convincing.

Anyone who knows me knows I am self-sufficient, and I don’t ask for much in the way of help unless I really need to. Even now writing this I feel ashamed because I feel that a grown man should be able to make it on his own. But that isn’t always true. The reality is no matter how hard you try there are going to be times in our lives when we have to put our pride aside and ask for the help we need and let people know the truth about what we’re going through. I realize for me, that time is now. Anything you could afford will help me to keep a roof over my head and get me back on the road. Thank you.