Health, Home, and Car
This fundraiser is for myself, Lizzie/Harpbeats, and Craig as we’ve found ourselves backed into a financial corner with both bills and health issues. When we originally moved into this place we live, we had hoped we could keep up the $895 rent, our $225 car payment and everything on our own. Had things played out differently and we hadn’t had to drop a lot of our money on utility deposits, had various issues with internet and our computers, maybe we would be in a much better situation right now. Commissions would have been put out a lot quicker and I wouldn’t have needed to take on more than I could handle. As I am often the major source of income, things have grown hard to keep up with bills and commission wise.
Some folks know my roommate Craig has taken a few commissions on but due to her health, which I’ll get into below, she’s struggled in just day to day life let alone in commissions. When she does get commissions, it’s typically few and far between. We’ve looked into a 3rd roommate to help out with the money load in the house, but we’ve had no luck. Out of concern for how things would go after the whole issue with my computer, we first started looking for a roommate and have been for months.
We’ve contemplated getting day jobs BUT she can’t get a day job due to her heart issues and mounting health problems, and I’ve found it impractical for me to get a job. Right now, with my work queue, I don’t think a 40hr work week will go over well. I’m working every day on art, posting lines and colors and completed pieces but it is still been a struggle to meet art expectations for myself and others. With a 40+ hour work week I see that being even worse. Not to mention, at this stage, our issues have mounted to the point that a job couldn’t help in time.
I’ve personally been trying to be considerate to my commissioners and take very limited commissions, and try not to pile things on too much. I thought patreon would help with that, too, but I’ve found it’s left some folks feeling snubbed. With that in mind, we haven’t been bringing in a whole lot of money the past few months.
I hate asking for help. I hate to sound like a broken record or like I’m always begging but we’ve reached a point where we need a hand SOMEHOW. I don’t have family I can stay with. My mother and father have passed away, I don’t have any relatives and the closest thing I had to family was my ex roommate and that is not a situation that is ever going to happen again. For both our sakes. Craig, doesn’t have anywhere to go as her parents live in Italy and we don’t really have any friends we can room with that currently live down here.
As things stand right now we owe close to 1k on our car, Craig really needs to get to Italy with her family so she can get her health checked out and get her surgery which (as of right now) tickets are at least 1.5k from the airports around us to Venice, Italy where they live. Of course, rent is around the corner again (we’ve managed to get most our other bills paid this month) but $895 is a lot to get up so soon. I’ll be going into each thing in a little more detail below!
Craig’s health issues and intentions for the future:
First off, Craig’s had a heart condition for a while. She has Supraventricular tachycardia and she needs a catheter ablation. Her heart hinders her in a lot of ways, especially with the combination of stress and her blood sugar/blood pressure problems. She struggles to do a lot of basic things without it setting off her heart, such as bending down to pick things up, moving around too fast, coughing, laughing too hard, sneezing too hard, and so on. She has to be very careful on a day to day basis about how she’s breathing, as it will set her heart off.
She also needs to get tested for diabetes, or alternatively hypoglycemia. She cannot eat meals without feeling queasy a few minutes later, very lethargic, and dizzy. Even with a good night's rest, she’ll need a nap after eating a meal most times. Alternatively it will make her very nauseous, and very close to throwing up right after eating in the worst of cases, even if she takes it slow and eats a little at a time. In the mornings she wakes up nauseous, dizzy and disoriented, and this has caused a lot of issues in the past with school and work as it makes it difficult to get up with ease and go about the day. I’ve had days where she wakes up and she can’t move. I’ve had to help her roll out of bed and her body has reacted much like a limp noodle. She, in general, can’t move around much without getting tired very easily. As of late another symptom that has arose is frequent bathroom breaks, even a mere couple of minutes after drinking something, and it’s starting to get concerning how frequent it is.
Another issue is a possible hormonal imbalance. Her periods are very intense all around, and so is ovulation, so both of them combined make most of the month hell, with very little down time between. There are also other issues, which she’d rather not disclose as they are more personal.
She also has a lot of allergies to a lot of fruits and vegetables, grass, flowers, and many animals. Doctors have advised her to get an epi-pen, but our funds don’t allow it.
We need to get her to her family in Italy so she can get the tests she needs, and any type of procedure she may need. She has dual citizenship and her father has been in talks with her doctor back in Italy but we’ve been unable to save the funds to get her home. My hope is that we can get her back home to her folks, get her checked up and patched up if possible, and back here where she’ll be in a better place to find work or at least live a better life health wise.
The rent situation:
Basically I’ve been taking on limited commissions to keep in mind the amount of work I have now as well as those who have commissioned me. I had hoped to make some honest headway but it hasn’t been quite enough to justify opening more commissions at this moment. Not to mention some commissioners have voiced concerns with me taking on more commissions when I still owe work to some folks. The problem in this, and I try to explain, is that situations like this arise. We have no funds coming in and thus we have a very real concern of getting evicted. If that happens no one wins, in the end. It’s just reached a point where we don’t have a lot of other options.
We’ve looked for a roommate, and tried to think of other options but we have no other plans. We wanted to find a cheaper place when we were moving but, really, this was the safest seeming place we could find that allowed our pets and our credit scores. It seemed probable to keep it up if it weren’t for a large part of our funds being eaten up by deposits AND my net/computer issues.
I’m really hoping this will be the last month we need to ask for help with this. I’m so hoping that once Craig is in a better state of health and I’m pushing through more and more commissions, it’ll be easier to sustain us. I don’t have a lot to really say about that that I haven’t already said…
The Car:
A little over a year ago me, Craig, and the roommate we had at the time decided that we needed a new vehicle as the truck I had gotten from my dad had become a rolling deathtrap. I put down 5k and we split car payments etc as long as the three of us were using it. I’ve mostly kept up with it, but a few months back it fell behind due to a mess I had with a debt of mine and, with the limited commissions, I haven’t been able to keep the payments up. Right now we need to make a substantial payment, if not 1k, in order to keep it from being repo’d. Our car is VERY important to us. Without the car there is a lot we can’t do, especially since we live in south ga. Public transit isn’t a big thing and, where I live, not a lot is really in walking distance. We can’t take our kitties to the vet, we can’t go grocery shopping or to the doctor. We could pay our rent online, but there is a $30 fee.
I’ve put $7k+ into this car not counting the tag stuff and insurance. We need a method of transportation ESPECIALLY if Craig plans to look for work once her health is better.
In conclusion, we’ve tried everything we can think of. We don’t spend a lot of money freely. Most of the money we get goes to bills or getting enough food to last us a few days. We don’t eat out a ton, we don’t have Netflix or Hulu or things like that. My sub of FFXIV will run out this month (I had bought 6 months of it the last time I renewed), I don’t even have a phone active right now in order to cut expenses where I could. We don’t have TV. What we do have is basic needs or for work. I don’t buy video games and haven’t since last year, I haven’t bought clothes since last year, etc. We hadn’t actually bought a good amount of groceries in a few months until today.
We’re doing everything we can think of to stay afloat and we just need some help. I know it’s a big number, but even the smallest thing can be a huge help. We really REALLY need to take care of this and we’ll be more than willing to show receipts and proof as things go along to prove that we plan to use this money for what we say and not flippantly. I’ve even tried to look into a loan to take care of these things or refinancing the car, with no luck. I can’t offer much other than my overwhelming thanks at the moment to those who donate but, truly, thank you. You will be a lifesaver in ways you do not know.
Links to more shots of craig's heart ..monitors from a few years ago: https://sta.sh/21b5m9cwnzw4
also just to show that right now we're very near having our car repo'd: https://sta.sh/0982pyh96xa
^they won't even let us make a payment without first contacting them