An update

Well, that was certainly not what I expected.

I’m terrible at knowing how to deal with generosity of this magnitude, so I’ll just say thank you. I’m learning about managing my expectations — even with full treatment I may not see any improvement, there are plenty of other complications with Diabetes, lots of work ahead and potentially no good news at the end of all of it. But as naturally cynical as I often am, I’d have to already be blind to not see how amazing this reaction was, and not to be stunned by it.

Thank you all very much. Heading forward at least not as panicked about everything I’m going to have to do in the next year or so.

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Tuesday morning I experienced needles in my eyes

If you’ve never had that, boy, it’s not fun. Just as a head’s up, you should try and avoid that.

So long story short, I’ve been diagnoses with Diabetes for a few years. But I’ve apparently had it longer than I was diagnosed, because a recent trip to the eye doctor revealed I have Diabetic Retinopathy, and I’ve likely had it for over ten years. It’s in an advanced stage. I only discovered it because there’s a hemorrhage in my left eye (ironically, it’s a lovely pink heart in my field of vision, it looks like I’ve got a 24/7 Valentine’s Day ad in there) that happened this Sunday.

Now, there are treatments for this. Expensive treatments. Treatments that I do not have coverage for. There’s lots of reasons for that, and we’re working on fixing this, but for right now I’m in a situation where I have to cough up money I don’t have or risk blindness. Since I make my living as a writer, blindness is a real problem. Let’s be frank, it would be anyway.

The treatment plan I’m on is a fairly aggressive one. I had to go get injections in my eyes Tuesday morning around 7 in the morning. I want to stress, lying in a hospital chair with metal restraints in your eyes while told to look to the left and having someone inject you in the eyes is about as close to a nightmare experience as I’ve had in a while, and the fact that I managed to do it shows you just how bad the situation is. And I’ll be doing it again monthly for the next two months. There may be lasers in my future as well, or potentially old fashioned surgery, which I can’t really think about right now.

Amuway, yes, we’re doing a GoFundMe because we’re out of options at this point. Any help you can spare would be appreciated. It’s likely not even going to be close to enough, but right now it’s the best we can do. Thank you in advance for any help, and for the well wishes over Twitter the past few days.