Updated! We have enough! This is going to happen!
URGENT APPEAL: Please Help Save Two Futures!!!
THANK YOU to everyone who has made this possible. A kind, KIND soul is topping the crowdfund up next week and thereby saving my kid's life, preventing homelessness for their fiancee, and launching two futures on a new, joint track of possibility. Our gratitude and relief are boundless.
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We very much need your kindness and support. Our nearly 20-year-old transgender nonbinary kid Ruby was very ill at the beginning of the pandemic. Their health never really returned to anything like normal and then they began to decline again, all the while trying to navigate doing a double workload at school, and now they are seriously disabled, paralyzed from the chest down and with fatigue and a lot of pain. After four+ years and a misdiagnosis, we are finally in good hands with a specialist who has
identified dysautonomias affecting the function of processes all through their body, including blood pressure and breathing, and have begun to start treatments that are actually helping. Ruby can even sit up a little bit again, and thus use their electric wheelchair and have a shred more independence back. We are meeting each challenge to their health and quality of life head-on, doing whatever it takes.
Ruby will eventually be able to move to a personal apartment, ideally one from a specific group offering private apartments in a building where medical support and help is available 24/7, but these places are difficult to arrange and not always available. Ruby's partner (19, living in the United States) will be able live with Ruby, here with us at first until an independent-living apartment can be sorted out, but this is what we need the most immediate help with: it's only allowed for their partner to stay here for three months at a time. We don't have any money but a friend bought such a trip for them as a one-off because Ruby was so incredibly low psychologically and at that point we weren't even certain they weren't actively dying (huzzah for the new specialist!). Ruby was able to propose in person! They're engaged! And they are so incredibly good together. Hearing my daughter laughing again, seeing how happy they were, restored us all immensely. But the parting again was devastating. Ruby NEEDS them to be together, WE need them to be together. And now the fiancée's family home is facing foreclosure and they NEED to get back here ASAP or risk homelessness.
If we can get 4500 Euros together, plus air fare, plus some extra expenses like luggage, Ruby's fiancée can come here and start a one-person business (it doesn't have to make a profit or even break even, it just has to really exist and be active), and they can get a residency permit and a version of happily ever after, which will be life-saving and future-saving for both of them.
We're struggling to make ends meet and face challenges on two small disability pensions for three people.
Every bit, every few cents, helps immensely.
There are a number of ways to get involved.
There is an appeal at Ko-Fi where you can donate, buy nature facts bookmarks for 50 cents,
buy my newest novel, or commission custom blended-worlds photos.
You could consider browsing my photo portfolio and maybe buying a picture or two;
if you don't like the print options you can opt for the digital download and use your favorite printer.
Albums can be accessed via the menu on the right (bees, blended worlds, street photography, etc.).
It's possible also to donate directly to my Paypal if you prefer.
And lastly, I have a Patreon page, which will become more active and interesting once we're through these crises.