Jared's Open Heart Surgery

Twice this past year I happened to stumble across the same quote by Susan Sontag:

“Illness is the night side of life, a more onerous citizenship. Everyone who is born holds dual citizenship, in the kingdom of the well and in the kingdom of the sick. Although we all prefer to use the good passport, sooner or later each of us is obliged, at least for a spell, to identify ourselves as citizens of that other place.”

The quote, taken from, "Illness as a Metaphor" was used as an epigraph in two books I read, "On Immunity" by Eula Biss and "The Emperor of all Maladies" by Siddhartha Mukherjee. These sources are of course speaking to temporal illness--Illness which has an onset and is either "cured" or fatal. I am not someone with such an illness. I am someone with a "condition." The Sontag quote gave me pause in all instances, because as someone with a chronic condition I am never sure of my "dual citizenship." Some months it feels as though wellness is a kingdom I am only allowed into on a tenuous travel visa which is always in danger of sudden and volatile expiry.

It is with some sadness that I inform you that this month I will be making a (hopefully brief) sojourn back to my home country, the country of the sick. I have a rather large aneurysm on my coronary artery. Said aneurysm necessitates open heart surgery. I have been told that even among people who tend to get aneurysms, an aneurysm in this particular location is almost unheard of. The surgery is, in some ways, novel. A team of surgeons are going to both bypass the aneurysm and insert a covered stent. Though the procedure itself has not been performed in quite this way, the components of the procedure -- bypass, stent--are familiar to the surgeons.

I don't like to speak of my medical history. Many of you may not be aware that this is the third aneurysm I will have had corrected by surgery. The first operation, done intravenously when I was 8, was done to occlude an aneurysm in my brain. The second was to bypass another brain aneurysm, and was done when I was 21. This surgery was particularly trying for me, as it came only six months after my father's suicide, and I was very depressed. I was in the hospital for 20+ days after the first operation in a two part, skull cracking procedure. I fully expect to recover from heart surgery significantly faster than the protracted convalescence of my last brain surgery. Any of these aneurysms, if left untreated would be almost certainly fatal. My condition is without a name, a diagnosis, or even a fellow sufferer as far as anyone knows. Long term data about what I can expect for my well being, or even non-surgical treatments is unfortunately completely unavailable.

Throughout everything I have been fortunate enough to receive love and support from family and friends. If you feel that you have extra money this month and would like to help contribute to my medical bills it would be much appreciated. I'm going to hit my insurance's spending cap ($2,000) twice, as the surgery's associated diagnostic tests have occurred over two years (2015 & 2016). Additionally, the recovery period of 4-6 weeks will extend past my existing paid time off at work, and I will have to take unpaid leave. I have relatively little savings to cover these expenses because I am young, and still wrestling with student loans and the anxious beginnings of a "career." Any extra money raised by this campaign I will save to cover the cost of the inevitable 4th aneurysm.

If you can't contribute I totally understand. Please take a moment to say hi via e-mail/facebook/text etc. I will be happy to hear from you. Wish me luck, friends!