Keith's Medical Fund
Donation protected
Hello Everyone! My name is Keith Boyd and I am starting this campaign out of medical and financial necessity. I am a Special Education teacher in Southern California, a husband and father and will be undergoing spinal surgery at the end of November. About a year ago I started having pain and weakness in my neck, right shoulder and head. As an avid water-person I figured that I was experiencing some sort of muscle strain and did all of the usual things one does to alleviate the situation. When ice, stretching and ibuprofen didn't help I eventually went to see my doctor. Over the course of the last year I have tried physical therapy, electrical stimulation, spinal cord injections as well as meditation and positive thinking. Just about two months ago I had an MRI and went for an appointment with a surgeon. While this visit was revelatory it was also deeply disappointing. The doctor took me to the viewing station to see my MRI and after explaining what I was looking at showed me the three vertebrae in my neck that have pinched my spinal cord and spinal nerves. He told me that he has been doing his work for 27 years and would categorize my situation as "severe" and he added, "To be honest with you, I don't know how you're not screaming in pain right now". Basically my situation is that I have Degenerative Disc Disease in three vertebrae. I also have osteoarthritis in the bone and stenosis. These three situations have resulted in my spinal cord and the nerves branching out into my right arm and head being pinched. This has been the cause of so much that has bothered me over the last year. Given that I have tried all other available options the only thing left is surgery. The surgery will be to remove the damaged disc material, replace it with bone graft material and fuse the vertebrae with tiered titanium brackets that will be there for life. As you can imagine, this is a lot to process. There is the surgery itself which is fairly intense but there is also the recovery time which can be very lengthy. As I mentioned before, I am a Special Education teacher. This is work that I dearly love and have been doing for 16 years. While my work does include insurance and sick leave, this procedure will be pushing up against both of them and bringing about a heavy toll on my and my family's lives. I have just about two week of sick leave at this point. As I was planning on the timing for the surgery I decided to minimize the impact on my class and student's lives by using the three weeks we have off for our Winter Break and hopefully being out of my class for as little time as possible. Well, as the saying goes, life is what happens while we are busy making plans for other things. It turns out that because I will be on leave from my district I will be in an unpaid status once my sick leave is used up. This leaves me with the potential of not getting paid for what could be a couple of months. I'm sure that anyone who has struggled with employment or healthcare costs knows what 2 months (potentially longer) without receiving a regular paycheck can mean. So, that's my motivation for starting this campaign. I have contributed to a friend's Gofundme and to several Indiegogo and Kickstarter projects and have seen the power of crowdfunding in action. While they are probably similar to what you can imagine, my particular uses of these funds would include offsetting my lost wages. In addition to the usual life expenses (including having a daughter who just started college) there are various aspects of my medical situation that it turns out aren't covered by my insurance. These include equipment such as braces and follow-up treatment to improve function after the surgery. As a person who enjoys being active with all manner of wave riding pursuits and as someone who places a high value on creating art and music I know that this surgery is the right path for me. My ability to engage in those pursuits has been severely compromised by pain and a decreased range of motion. The near-constant pain has resulted in a decrease of sleep and an overall lowering of my quality of life and enjoyment of it. I'm of the strong conviction that once I am done with the surgery and recovery process, those issues will be resolved as well. If you can contribute I welcome your support with all of my heart. It would mean the world to me to not have to worry as much about the impact this will have on my family's lives. Please let me thank you in advance for even considering my campaign. Much Love, Light and Blessings to you all!
Organizer
Keith Boyd
Organizer
Vista, CA