Campaign Story

I hope this letter reaches you in good health and spirits. My name is Taylor Vertrees. I have been married for 3 years to Katisha Vertrees. We began talking to each other in 2018, I was away in maritime school and Katisha was going through college. We would communicate through social media and texts. Katisha would send me care packages and really became a huge lifeline for me. In school, I was not allowed to leave campus due to the paramilitary nature of the training. We grew close even through the distance. After finishing training, I returned home, and we were able to see each other and go on actual dates. This was short lived as I was set to leave on a ship for four months. Before I had to leave, we had a date I will never forget. The date was at Waterside in Norfolk, VA. We walked around and talked, it was a beautiful night, and the city had a Ferris wheel set up on the dock. We rode the Ferris wheel, and I took one of my favorite pictures of Katisha that night. We talked all night about what the logistics of us being together would look like. I made it a point to tell her that with the career I chose I would be away a lot. A mariner’s year is usually 8 months away, two 4-month deployments separated with 2 months at home. She understood. It was time for our night to end, and to be honest I never wanted that night to end, but before it did, I worked up the courage to ask Katisha to be my girlfriend. So August 6th, 2018, at roughly 9pm it was official I had a girlfriend, and she was amazing. I had to return to school August 30th, 2018 from which I would leave directly to a ship for 4 months. The short time we had together was enough to make us want to stay with each other. I left and didn’t come back until March 24th, 2019. That was a hard deployment. I missed Katisha so much through all the holidays. It was towards the end of that deployment I realized I wanted to be with her more and maybe live together. So, we discussed moving into an apartment together. Katisha picked out the apartment while I was away, it was 2 bedrooms, 750sqft and right on the beach. So, me, Katisha and her dog Clyde (who I later adopted as my own) moved into the apartment. Fast forward to the year 2022. I never returned to a ship and became a Virginia Beach firefighter, Katisha graduated and secured a job at Sentara hospitals as a Peripheral Vascular Technologist. We bought our first home together; we got Clyde a friend/brother a pit/mastiff named Jazz. Unfortunately, we ended up losing Clyde abruptly to cancer. This is somewhere around May/June of 2022, and we had decided to try and have a baby. We both have always wanted to be parents and felt that this was our time.
Katisha has lupus and has been diagnosed since 2016. Going into the pregnancy we knew it would be high risk. We talked to all her doctors, and we got the approval to try. SUCCESS!!!!!!!!! We made a baby! We went to the appointments excited to see the ultrasounds and hear the heartbeat until at about 15 weeks the heartbeat became inaudible. Complications with Katisha’s health also began to arise. On September 16th we lost Aaliyah Renee Vertrees. The doctors induced labor and Katisha delivered a 15-week-old baby. I saw Aaliyah. I saw her fingers. I saw her skin. I felt her. She was so small and underdeveloped but that was our child. That was Aaliyah. We were crushed. Aaliyah was cremated in Norfolk, VA. We took her ashes and spread them with Clyde’s ashes on the Eastern Shore near these old sunken merchant ships in Kiptopeke State Park. Not only were we heartbroken, but the stress of the pregnancy caused Katisha to go into kidney failure. Now we had to navigate this.
It was the end of 2022 into the beginning 2023 that Katisha decided to go on dialysis and with 6% kidney function she really had no choice. Katisha was on peritoneal dialysis for 2 years. I could write another three pages on that experience itself, but I will save you the time. The 2 years she spent on dialysis was hard on her body and mind. We navigated it together and I believe the togetherness was the only thing that got us through it.
Now for some good news, On December 13th, 2024 (Friday the 13th) Katisha received an anonymous kidney donation. You could only imagine the type of relief we felt after that. With our nerves shot and our minds drained, we sat in the hospital and healed for 4 days. December 17th, 2024, we were discharged from the hospital, and I brought Katisha home. Our dog Jazz was beyond ecstatic to see his mom. I made us some dinner, and we relaxed for a moment when Katisha suddenly felt a sharp pain in her chest. I rushed her from Elizabeth city, NC to Norfolk General in Virginia. Roughly an hour drive all the while Katisha was having a heart attack. They rang the STEMI alert and Katisha was rushed back to an operating room where the doctors placed a stent in her Left Anterior Descending Artery. LAD. The Widow Maker.
Katisha’s resilience is by far her shining quality through all these hard times. Her ability to comfort me from a hospital bed while she’s connected to an IVIG treatment, recovering from a heart attack, speaks volumes to her selflessness. Katisha is born to be a mother, and I was born to be a father. We would be endlessly thankful for help with the cost of adoption. We have so far been paying out of pocket. A HelpUsAdopt grant would mean that we could be parents. It would change our lives forever in a good way. Your financial assistance would not be in vain. We are determined to be the greatest parents and bring our child into a house full of love.
Thank you for your time and consideration.