---

Do not get lost in a sea of despair. Be hopeful, be optimistic. Our struggle is not the struggle of a day, a week, a month, or a year, it is the struggle of a lifetime. Never, ever be afraid to make some noise and get in good trouble, necessary trouble.

Representative John Lewis of Georgia

A Troublemaker Of The Very Best Kind

It is a honour and a privilege to introduce you to someone who is as strong and courageous as anyone I have ever been blessed to know in my life.

I do not casually throw those terms out there into the universe without the person they are meant for being thoroughly deserving of them.

My cousin Hannah Maurer is one of those genuinely special people who you cannot stop yourself from falling under her spell from a smile so bright the sun has massive feelings of inadequacy and eyes so bright and lively with a formidable intelligence and an even more formidable sense of humour that only fools would dare to underestimate.

And once you’re so ensnared, the caring and love that she has for others in her heart which leads directly to her tireless work and advocacy for those in need ensures that you never wish to be released from being a devoted fan and follower of a genuine troublemaker of the very best kind.

She’s also a huge fan of manatees and it’s hard not to be for anyone who has been to Haulover Canal on the Canaveral National Seashore just north of the Vehicle Assembly Building, but I digress. 🙂

In her rather brief lifetime, she has also been exceptionally active in her community especially when it comes to political work and advocacy.

If you want one instance that shows what Hannah is capable of when she sets her mind to accomplish something, you need look no further than her school district who scheduled her high school graduation ceremony for her school which has a sizeable Jewish population on Shabbat which would have forced many of her fellow students to choose between the crowning achievement of their high school career and their faith.

She didn’t think that was at all fair and she led a delegation that went before that school board to put the case before them that they really needed to reconsider their scheduling decision after providing them some education and insight into the student body of that school and why they needed to find a better solution so that she and her fellow students wouldn’t be subjected to such a dreadful choice.

It turned out she didn’t end up needing to choose between graduation and her faith. That outcome was never really in doubt for those of us who knew her well. But it was the how victory was brought about with caring, reason and understanding and allowing the school board to understand that the scheduling was never seen as an intentional slight to the Jewish community but that rectifying it would be in everyone’s best interest.

That’s classic Hannah right there! 🙂

Fighting The Fight Of Her Life

She’s also managed to achieve a Master’s degree in Legal Studies with an emphasis on Healthcare Compliance which seems more than a little ironic with the story that’s about to come.

She’s accomplished so much in her short lifetime that would take most of us three lifetimes to even approach and she has done that whilst enduring so much pain due to endometriosis we could never imagine in our worst nightmares since she was 11 years old.

Her rather harrowing description of the excruciating pain she deals with on a near constant basis and just how much it affects her daily quality of life and ability to simply do things most of us take for granted really does put her many amazing accomplishments to this point into even more stark perspective, if you ask me.

I remember her anguish at the many years it took to actually properly diagnose what she was experiencing after finding doctors and specialists who actually and truly listened to her and didn’t try to write off her symptoms as normal.

I’d like to think that growing up amongst medical professionals and having a sister and later a daughter experience the joys of the periodic visits from a particularly unloved Aunty that I have a better understanding of the process of menstruation than most males and even I would have really questioned anyone trying to sell me on the idea that a period that ran a continuous six months was at all normal.

If a month or so were missed here and there until the hormones finally stabilised and the cycle approached some sort of predictability which can often take a year or more, I could buy that but six months continuously from the off?

I don’t bloody think so (no pun intended)!

Unfortunately listening isn’t necessarily the medical profession’s long suit, especially when it comes to most doctors who aren’t really trained in knowing what endometriosis looks like much less how to properly treat a condition that can never truly be cured at this point in time.

But even when she finally found medical providers whose heads weren’t firmly inserted up that general area of the anatomy that was giving poor Hannah such bother, it’s still been a hard fight advocating for the proper treatment and just trying to survive any given day when most of us would have given up.

I recently proved once again how flexible my panoramic and pleasantly plump (or as Gabriel Iglesias might put it…FLUFFY but not quite yet to *DAYUM*!) physique…isn’t.

I was walking behind the freshly mopped floor behind the bench at the ice rink (which was rather an idiotic choice on my part!) and my right leg decided to fly straight out from under me to straight and perfectly parallel with the deck whilst gravity then showed me what a harsh mistress she is by attracting my left knee which dropped straight down and took an already hyper-extended hamstring and made it that much worse.

The last few weeks have not been pleasant to put it mildly!

I was much luckier than a friend of mine who actually did much the same thing except that she tore all of those muscles and the hamstring away from the attachment point and is looking forward to a rather unpleasant surgery and extended recovery time I wouldn’t wish upon my worst enemy.

And even though the hamstring pain has been excruciating at times and ibuprofen all of a sudden was very much my newest bestie to even a certain daily activity being conducted at altitude because completely sitting was not an option for the first three weeks…all of that pain, inconvenience, and frankly embarrassment pales compared to what poor Hannah has been dealing near constantly with for well over a decade!

And in so enduring that which few of us would ever have the strength to do likewise, she has shown she is so deserving of that middle name of hers which is truly a marvel to behold and just makes me even more of a fan of hers if that is even possible.

What Can We Do To Help?

Hannah has now found a specialist surgeon who may well be able to dramatically improve her quality of life so that she can do the work she was destined to do in making this world a dramatically better place for all who live upon it.

That Master’s degree of hers would be well-served advocating for other women who are also dealing with and often enduring endometriosis in silence and excruciating pain as the insurance companies exert an inordinate level of control over how she may be treated and the techniques, tools, and amount of time allowed to do the job properly.

Having worked on the inside at a health insurance company for seven years, I can assure you that Hannah’s experience is hardly atypical. The average for-profit insurance company is full of bureaucrats, bean counters, and actuaries who wouldn’t know which end or orifice to properly insert a thermometer deciding what is an appropriate course of treatment rather than highly trained medical doctors who actually know what in the hell they’re doing and what they’re talking about (and with endometriosis, just finding such a well-trained surgeon is a Herculean task unto itself!) is the height of absurdity.

So she’s now got a date for surgery and a massive bill for an out-of-network specialist that has to be paid prior to her actually having an opportunity to finally be relieved of the massive burden she has carried with far more grace and dignity than most of us will ever know and if there was anyone who was truly deserving of real relief from suffering, it is my dear and beloved cousin Hannah.

Read her story in her own words and then please do search your heart.

If you can help her financially through the donation channels listed in her appeal, then by all means please do and thank you from the bottom of our hearts for having the compassion and love to do so.

I would consider it a blessing that if you were of the mind to give me a gift during this festive season that you’d strongly consider donating to help make change Hannah’s life for the better instead. Such a gift of love and compassion that would allow me to see that smile and the light in her eyes and see her rock the world would mean far more to me than anything I could ever dare ask to receive for myself.

But if you all you can do in these trying economic times is share her story with your friends and family, then that’s noble work as well and I have no doubts would be equally appreciated by her and all who know and love her.

Together we will succeed in giving Hannah a life that will allow her to bring her true destiny to life and dramatically improve the lives of so many others that she has cared and advocated for in her brief time amongst us.

Thank you kindly for your time and consideration and hopefully we’ll make this the happiest of festive seasons for a genuine troublemaker of the very best kind! 🙂