Katherine Lynn Kane

Hi.

I’m Kat. While it took me a while to properly understand it, I’ve been battling chronic pain and fatigue conditions since I was in grade school. That was the first time I can remember my behavior starting to change, to accommodate the pain – the point at which I stopped climbing on some jungle gym equipment or doing things like cartwheels and somersaults regularly, because things hurt I wasn’t expecting. But I couldn’t have imagined then, that at the age of 47 I would require 9 hours of spinal surgery to remove such an excess of calcium deposits throughout my cervical spine, which was compressing my spinal cord to the degree that holding up my own neck had started to become a real challenge.

Since that surgery there has been some improvement, but there has also been trauma and damage caused by it, that came with it. And I have had to learn to accept that – between the spinal stenosis, arthritis, bursitis, fibromyalgia, chronic fatigue, diabetes, hypertension, and literally that’s just the start of the list – my physical function is more likely to decline from here, than it is to improve. At least if I am trapped within the Medicaid-only healthcare options, and it’s limited ability to get me the physical therapy, equipment and kinds of specialists I need. Then there’s the host of mental health challenges that have come with it.

If you’ve arrived at this page, and you can contribute in any way, to helping me get the kind of care that might not just allow me survive, but to actually thrive, I would be very grateful. For the many people I connect to who are, like me, trapped at the intersection of disability and poverty, and who therefore cannot contribute, I would appreciate if you just found someplace to share this page with your own network(s) online.

This page will expand and grow as time permits – I expect my relationship with HHL to a long one. Please also consider following my journey toward a (hopefully) brighter future, via the social media of your choosing. 🙂

Family and friends of Katherine Kane are raising money for the nonprofit Help Hope Live to fund uninsured medical expenses associated with her disability and chronic illness conditions.

Katherine has chosen to fundraise with Help Hope Live in part because donations are tax deductible for contributors and will only be used to cover medical and related expenses. But also because, any money donated to help through this path will not negatively impact my ability to access vital disability benefits like SSI, Medicaid and EBT.