Help Patrick Dean and his family fight ALS

Three years ago our friend Patrick Dean was diagnosed with ALS, a terminal neurodegenerative disease. For almost two years he’s needed 24 hour care, and now is receiving additional inpatient hospice care. He and his family are having to pay for these expenses out of their own savings.

Patrick is the dad of two young children (the amazing Eloise and Julian) and husband of total badass Erin Josey. He's a son, a brother, and a friend to all. As co-organizer of the FLUKE minicomics festival he’s always been a champion of everyone in the small-press community. And he's a truly extraordinary cartoonist. Although he's now completely immobilized and unable to speak, Patrick still stubbornly manages to make his incomparable – hilarious, sweet, sad, scary, goofy, profound – art, now through the use of eye gaze technology .

The only way Patrick can get the complex care he now needs is through continuous skilled nursing care, which is very costly and not covered by his insurance. His family is paying for this enormous expense with the savings they were counting on for their parents' elder care and for Eloise and Julian's futures. Let's help Patrick get the palliative hospice care he needs without him having to be afraid it will deny his family the future he wants for them.

Patrick and Erin have emphasized that it's very important to them that no one donate to this campaign unless they can afford to. Even in deep darkness, they think about everyone around them first.