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The Broken Down Kelly-Go-Round Refurbishment Fund!

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Oh hello--! Didn't see ya there. I'm Kelly! No time for the whole sob story? I get it, I get it, time's precious, don't I know it. Here's the elevator pitch: my body "finally" fell apart like super hard and now I have just a few weeks to move my life and its debts to the other coast. Along the way I'll turn 37. I guess I get challenges for my birthday! The tagline? Learning To Ask For Help Was Just The Beginning... Or something like that. The marketing team can punch it up later OKAY STORYTIME

About 15 years into a manufacturing job in my beloved hometown, my lifelong chronic pain spread to my arms and hands. My invisible disabilities became all too visible. I hoped it would be a temporary medical leave of absence but eventually I had to listen to my team and accept that this was something much more permanent. They weren't sure why I stuck it out for this long, apparently. Thing is, autonomy is hard to relinquish voluntarily. I'm living with a sort of muscle memory amnesia. Now I can't pretend I'm fine even when I really really wanna. Determination, inertia and wheelchairs kept my social life running on fumes for a while but, quite literally, I can't push myself anymore. I can't keep the pain off my face and it makes people make sad faces. My body generates concern and not much catharsis. It's been not super fun, to be totally honest.

It's the uncertainty that really gets to me. Sometimes the pain is so bad I pass out, repeat myself, lose my sense of self, repeat myself, fail to make memories, become unable to eat, sleep, speak. Routine tasks require assistance much of the time now. Everything takes longer. A shower can knock me out for an entire day now. I must learn to manage this rattletrap my soul was assigned. I guess that's my full-time job now. It's more than full-time hours, and I can't succeed alone. I know that now, I say, staring meaningful into the middle distance

On June 25th my muscles failed in a scary new way and I had to be taken to the hospital by an emergency response team. In the ambulance I recited my medication regimen yet couldn't recall my own name. Long story short, this latest medical squad joins the rest in not knowing exactly why I'm losing a fight with my own body or why my brain-blood gets all insufficiently oxygenated. What is certain is that I owe them about a thousand bucks. ("That's actually not bad," my fellow Americans keep saying.)

A week later my landlord asked everyone on his property to vacate. With no way to guarantee safe recovery, I had to back out of an important surgical procedure years in the making. Suddenly it's time for me to leave the only street I've called home. Make a whole new life, in a whole new city, with my partner of 6 years, on the other side of the country. Maybe even recover, in some capacity? It could happen! I'm sure I can build a new health care team and dedicate my daytimes to weirdly specific therapies... I just gotta get there! My friends are my hands, packing up my life and my me, brainstorming ways to make the journey less bumpy. Baltimore or bust, baybeeee!! [upbeat inspirational music]

So yeah: this town has run out of specialists and I've run out of money. Five-digit medical debts make spooky sounds out my rear speakers. I'm patient, I'm persistent, and I'm sure I'll find my safety net, this is just one very scary leap of faith. As I navigate the gatekeepers of the resources for people like me, I've gotta pay the piper to be a leaf on the stream, pull my chickens up from their roost-straps, and go Life my Truth., you know what I'm saying?? I might not-- it turns out my mind has actually been part of this d*rned body this whole time and I wasn't kidding about the oxygen-starved brainblood-- but hey, no matter how this campaign turns out, look~! Crowdfunding!! Now nobody can say I didn't try it!!! BOOYAH

 

wow that took a long time to type lol my hands feel so weird

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  • Anonymous
    • $50 
    • 5 yrs
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Organizer

Kelly Marine
Organizer
Goleta, CA

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