MEDICAL DRESSINGS NEEDED ASAP TO KEEP THAI ALIVE

++ URGENT AID FOR MEDICAL BILLS & BANDAGES FOR THAI ++

you can also donate directly here ~ esp for international folx with different banks

We DIRELY need your help supporting a beloved community member. Thai currently needs funds for the hydrocolloid dressings that they need to survive full body chronic infections, as well as for high utility bills and several very high medical bills. This is an incredibly pressing need, and meeting these costs is instrumental to Thai’s survival.

Thai is a tireless and dedicated advocate for all of their friends and peers. Unfortunately, they now need your help to meet the critical needs above. Thai is currently battling full-body infections while attempting to fundraise for their existence. On top of that, they regularly receive unexpected medical bills in the hundreds and thousands, for care that is not optional. Thai’s utility bills and living costs have also been exceptionally high - they are bedbound and deserve safe housing and financial stability, as we all do.

As friends of Thai, we implore you to let our friend live, even as the medical-industrial complex and the conditions of capitalism attempt to diseappear them day after day. Once again, Thai desperately needs funds to cover their excessive out-of-pocket medical costs, which are a direct outcome from medical neglect, the failures of the medical industrial complex, and ableist systems at large replicated on an interpersonal and communal level.

Crucially, Thai is rapidly nearly out of hydrocolloid skin dressings. Thai is enduring agony from an extended profoundly painful reaction to overprescribed topical steroids that has stretched over most of their life. These dressings are the only bandages that provide them any relief from their skin infections, and are incredibly costly and can’t be found at local pharmacies. Thai is running critically low on these dressings and requires financial support to afford them. In addition, Thai’s infections are yet to be adequately diagnosed or treated despite previous interventions with multiple medical specialists who have validated the severity of their chronic illnesses.

The skin is the body’s largest organ, outward-facing and volatile, and an indicator of internal stressors & illness that is so often ignored in western medicine.

In a given day, Thai uses close to 10 boxes of these dressing to cover and relieve the pain of full-body/facial skin wounds; this means up to 70 boxes—or $1400 per week. The price of these dressings went up 1 year into the pandemic as a result of the inflation of medical supply costs under the medical industrial complex. The larger dressings they have been using cover more surface area, but are even more costly.

More information about Thai’s medical history is outlined in detail below:

Thai is a cancer survivor with multiple chronic and autoimmune conditions. They are severely immunocompromised and—due to the Covid-19 and monkeypox crises that they cannot safely receive vaccination for—cannot risk seeing doctors, therapists, specialists, and so has not been able to receive any regular treatment. They have been advised that the flu alone could kill them, since 5 years ago. They are also unable to get vaccinated at this time due to lethally high risk of reactions and systemic organ failure. Thai's care has been on hold since the start of the pandemic, due to high risk exposure, which has left them to fend for themselves however they can, usually through continuous crowd-funding efforts online. Please don't let them fall through the cracks.

Thai does not qualify for state or federal financial aid and is therefore forced to sacrifice any sense of privacy in an effort to raise funds for their survival, a constant performance against social media algorithms. In an era where GoFundMe stands as health insurance, this is unsustainable without consistency in community mutual aid. They are being censored across social media, their only window to the world and their sole channel for accessing their community.

Thai is a first generation Vietnamese American from a family of refugees, an interdisciplinary artist, writer, and community organizer centering their practice on chronic illness's social, cultural, and physical effects. They are also a disability justice advocate and a founding member of Sick In Quarters (SiQ), a disabled-artist-led mutual aid project supporting patient advocacy and care work in and for communities in en/forced marginalization...

Remember: consistency over time is one of the main tenets of mutual aid. Therefore, please directly ask those you are in community with to support and share this fundraiser continually and expansively. Thank you in advance for your solidarity, and please share this fundraiser with as many people as you can.

or you can also donate directly here ~ esp for international folx with different banks