Xtine & Terry dealing with crap. Your $ can help

Tl;dr: Xtine Burchnall has been given the worst news possible by her doctors. Everyone who cares about her needs to show it now by helping with the money side of the situation.

If you know Xtine, you know that she may have been named Christine with a "Chris," but she has embraced the X-ness of her personality, her art, her fashion, and her presence in all of our lives. Or, as Xtine has said, "Bless me, Jebus, but hedge your bets and all hail to the great god Chthulu."

Those of us who met Christine through Artcite have spent hours listening to her dry commentary while looking at art that was cool, weird or both. We've fielded many a phone call reminding us to renew our memberships, visit the latest opening, or volunteer to keep our artist-run centre living up to its mission. Outside of Artcite -- which was a labour of love for a long time, but also just a job -- we've benefited from her artistic vision, her humour, her euchre skills, her sharp cultural and political observations.

When Terry Whalen showed up, it was amazing to see True Love (TM) blossom between two cantankerous, generous, funny, no-bullshit iconoclasts. Their friends know that Terry and Xtine have forged an inspiring mutual devotion, all the more inspiring since it includes jabs, complaints and junk food alongside shared passions for art and music. Over the years, the two of them have coped with far more than their share of health challenges, ranging from cancer through many other craptastic illnesses to covid (including a month-long coma) to cancer again.

Throughout, C and T have done their utmost to meet each other's needs -- physical, financial, emotional. Terry retrained and changed careers, Christine embraced his son Nick. But over the most recent illness, the challenge has mounted even higher. Terry had to stop working to tend to Xtine's daily needs, so they are without consistent income at a time when their expenses keep piling up.

Now, in late July 2022, after a year and a half of battling cancer, Christine's been told by her doctors that treatment is no longer possible. She will be at home receiving palliative care. Obviously, Terry will deliver much of that care himself and will not be able to earn for the foreseeable future.

This is where we come in -- you and me. We can't change the prognosis. We can't ease the physical suffering. We can, of course, share stories and jokes and photos and memories and music (please do share all of those and anything else that will help Xtine and Terry feel embraced and supported by their community). But right now probably the most meaningful way we can help our friend is to contribute money so that financial stress doesn't demand attention at a time when it should be the least of their worries.

Let's put enough in a "kitty" to make money, indeed, the least of their worries. Money raised will be used for daily expenses, whether illness-related or just the cost of existing.

Christine and Terry deserve to focus on each other right now, and you and I can make that possible.