<div>It was suggested this got a bit long, so I’ve tried to revise this to tighten it up a bit. I am a windbag though, so my success at that task will vary.
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<div>My name is Timothy, but most will know me by nicknames that I've picked up over the years. I’ve an allergy to social media, putting me in the awkward position of sending this link directly to my friends. So if you're reading this, you know me or know someone who does.
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<div>I want to make one thing crystal clear: I'm not posting this with ANY presumption. This is not a measure of friendship, this is not an obligation; I'm not sitting here tallying 'who is the best friend'. Everyone has their own struggles, and my problems aren’t anyone else's responsibility.
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<div>I've been afraid of this fund feeling like a guilt trip, so please know it isn't. If you can’t donate, don’t worry about it, you don’t even need to say anything. I know it can be awkward.
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<div>Still, you have my sincere thanks just for reading this far.
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<div><strong>So, down to WHY this exists:</strong>
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<div><strong>I'll start with the summary, because I know this thing is long: I have a medical issue requiring a high risk surgery, and I’m moving to a new state at the same time. This GoFundMe is to help offset costs so I still have money for rent, food, internet, and car insurance after everything is done.</strong>
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<div><strong>For the details:</strong>
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<div>When I was a kid I had a kidney issue that destroyed part of them, leaving me with 1/3 on one side and 2/3 on the other. The issue was surgically corrected by criss-crossing the ureters, life moved on.
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<div>In April '24 I was part of a mass layoff from Best Buy. Every job I’ve had has been customer service, so I decided to try self-employment. Funds were limited, but I had enough in savings I thought I could give it a shot, paying rent, food, etc. from that.
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<div>In August '24, literal days after my COBRA from Best Buy ran out, I went to the ER for severe abdominal pain. Turned out I had a kidney stone passing, and the doctor said I needed to see a urologist in 30 days because my kidney function was impaired. My request for financial aid from the hospital was declined so it ended up costing me 3 months’ worth of rent and bills.
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<div>The doctor had only mentioned impaired kidney function, which didn’t feel like news to me. Believing the urologist would just tell me things I already knew, I put off going to avoid even more bills and labwork.
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<div>That brings us to now. The house rental I’m in is not renewing the lease, and I need to be out by end of June. I’m going to a small town in Florida, which isn't close to good medical care, so I finally made a urologist appointment 'to be safe'.
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<div>It turns out the problem is my smaller, weaker kidney has been growing stones like a science project which are now stuck there. Not only do the stones threaten the function, they present a constant concern of infection and obstruction, and I need all the kidney I've got, so to speak. Because of my childhood surgery, removal through a urinary scope is impossible and going through my back is the only option.
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<div>However, the kidney in question apparently decided to buddy up with my spleen and is pressed against it. For those unfamiliar, the spleen is part of your immune system and is full of blood. Even small ruptures are very bad, very fast. The surgeon said she’d require an imaging team in the operating room to see the tissues as she worked to avoid nicking it.
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<div>And currently I'm still trying to make self-employment work and thus am uninsured with dwindling savings. Put bluntly, even a partial surgery bill would wipe out the rest of what I have, and moving is already proving expensive on top of that.
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<div>This fund is my attempt to offset as much of the bills as I can so when all is said and done I have something to live off of as I set up income at my new home.
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<div><strong>The bills I have numbers for:</strong>
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<div>    • <strong>A Penske truck</strong> for the move (confirmed $1,820 for the one-way trip in a 16' truck after discounts)
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<div>    • <strong>Final Rent Month</strong> for the current place, which is ~$1100 after utilities
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<div>    • <strong>Gas</strong> for the truck (~$300)
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<div>    • <strong>A laptop to work from</strong> during pre-op, recovery, travel, etc (~$1300.00, $1099.00 + $205.66 protection plan – I’m actually using that right now to update this)
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<div>    • <strong>Previous Medical Bills</strong> - If I could get back the $3,700 (from ER, doctor, radiology, labs x2, and urology visits), that would also be an enormous help)
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<div><strong>The bills I don't have numbers for:</strong>
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<div>    • <strong>Additional appointments</strong> – I’m uncertain where I’ll be able to get financial aid to have the surgery done. It may be here in Texas, it may be in Florida. Either way, I'll need additional appointments, and given the CT scans were from August, whoever ends up doing the surgery may be requesting new ones to compare growth of the stones.
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<div>    • <strong>Extended stay rental</strong> – Basically an apartment that works like a hotel room where I'd live to be close to the surgeon during the ~2-3 weeks with the stent/catheter until its removal and in case something goes wrong. I've seen ~$65-80 a day with weekly/monthly rates.
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<div>    • <strong>Food</strong> – The surgeon switched me to a mostly-vegetarian/fish, low-calcium, low-sodium diet. Apparently plant proteins are easier on the kidneys than animal proteins. I’ll probably be drinking a lot of Soylent (not Green).
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<div>    • <strong>The operation</strong> - I'm still checking avenues for trying to get coverage for this. What I have been told to expect is a 1-3 day hospital stay, operating room, surgeon cost, imaging team, anesthesia, etc.
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<div><strong>Can I share this?</strong>
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<div><em>If you’d like to, feel free. </em>I really am just a digital hermit with zero social media presence, so I had to link it to people I knew directly. I am slightly paranoid about having posted medical bills up, but I think I got everything there.
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<div><strong>Have you thought of...</strong>
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<div><em>Medicare/caid?</em> Yes, but unfortunately that takes 45 days just to find out if you're accepted, and due to my awkward position of having a little money but not having none, it makes me ineligible, at least in Texas. And that's typically the case in other states too.
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<div><strong>Do you expect...</strong>
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<div><em>All of these costs to be covered?</em> If they do, I will probably cry, but it isn't an expectation. In fact, I expect most people are in financial positions similar to mine. Nobody is 'on the hook' for this except me. It took me a over a week after writing this to convince myself to put it up after some of the bills came home to roost and I realized I needed help.
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<div><strong>Maybe you should...</strong>
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<div><em>Look into more traditional work? </em>You're not wrong. If it comes down to it, yes. I've already registered for Mechanical Turk through Amazon that I'll be using to see if that can offset some things. But if I can get to a point of being self-sufficient and break out of the customer support drone loop... it's hard to describe just how important that is to me without sounding melodramatic. I don't want to lose any more years to it than I already have.
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<div><strong>Should I...</strong>
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<div><em>Call you "Timothy" now?</em> No, <strong>please don't</strong> lol. Whatever handle you know me by works just fine.
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<div>When all the dust has settled, my hope is to have enough that I can support myself on the new rent/bills for at least a few months. From there, my aim is to continue working on income sources, and hopefully still have a shot at self-employment.
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<div>Thank you for reading this, I’m grateful just for that. If all you can send are good vibes, I’m grateful for those too. I’m grateful for every bit, as every bit is a bit less I have to worry, and a bit further I can go.
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<div><strong>P.S.</strong>
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<div>Sorry for all the redactions on the bills. I'm not really sure what's supposed to go up. But basically, it's just what I had on hand to show the bills from the ER visit.
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