Bill Needs a Hand (Literally!)

Hey there, you lovely people you!

It's Bill over here in sunny(?) Los Angeles and I'm sending out this here GoFundMe to humbly ask for a little assistance.

Here's why.

On Friday the 13th, in October no less, I was helping to load a moving truck with set pieces for an event at my job at the Los Angeles LGBT Center and took a fall from the bed of the truck onto the street below. (And no, the truck wasn't moving!) I landed hard on my left side and pretty much right away, I realized I had broken my arm. All of my co-workers immediately rallied and got me off the street and one amazing friend/co-worker even improvised a sling for me right there on the spot. One of my bosses drove right over and took me to the ER.

The official break is called a capitellum fracture and is a relatively uncommon break in the elbow. (For those of you who are squeamish I won't describe the physics of what happened to the bone) Right away it was determined that I needed surgery and the soonest they could get me in for that was 3 weeks later. So basically for my birthday I got 3 screws countersunk into my bones. After that I was back into a cast and almost 4 weeks later that was removed and I am now in PT for quite a while. They are saying it might be a year before we know the extent of the injury and whether I will have any loss of range of motion.

So here is the ask:

Even though I did get hurt on the job so all of the medical stuff is covered (thank goodness!), I am only a relief-on-call employee. Which basically means I have no consistent income amount at the job. And that makes the actual workers comp payments pretty darn low. Since the injury, I have basically been getting enough from workers comp each month to pay my rent and one bill. Usually, I am also hustling on the side to find gigs to fill in the financial gaps as an extremely part time employee. That is usually building sets, handyman work, hanging lights, striking sets, etc. But it is still not safe for me to lift anything over 15-20 lbs and it is for sure not safe for me to be using any power tools yet. I suggested trying out using my tools to my doctors and a look of "Dear God No" came across their faces.

So I am doing what they told me and not doing any of that kind of work yet. And they have said that realistically they don't know when I can go back to work. My savings are pretty much depleted and I have been putting off paying a few bills as much as possible but it now looks like I can't dodge those much longer.

Some friends sat me down and told me that it is time for me to ask for help. As with many of us, it is hard to do that, especially when a few times throughout the years, one has asked for help with other things like making art and that kind of thing. But it was pointed out to me that we all need help sometime and I am no different. So, I am humbly asking for some help because I need that help right now. Anything that you can do would be massively appreciated. The number that I put here is to help take the edge off of these last few months and to help with the next couple.

Thank you all for being in my corner. Not just for this but for being in my corner all the times in the past that you helped me or my art life. I appreciate you all so much.