I feel like I know this story too well. It only took me until "swelled up like an inflated balloon" to think wait this must be John

Scars on your body show that you have lived; scars on your heart show that you have loved.

Nina Dul

Please follow, share, and interact with Madleen @palestinianmother's videos on tiktok to help bring more awareness to her campaign. Here is the link to her tiktok page:

Please also share her gfm link and donate if you can:

For those who don't know, Rafah Crossing is closed. Meaning Palestinians in the Gaza Strip are technically not allowed to go into Egypt through Rafah Crossing (with exceptions, like holding a foreign passport) so in order to evacuate, Palestinians need to bribe Egyptian border security officials. The standard price used to be about $5000 - 7000 per person but some Palestinians have been told to pay $10,000 per person just to cross the border, forget other expenses like food and boarding.

For a group of people who are enduring genocide and the complete destruction of their homes that money is impossible to raise without the help of fundraising. That and the collapse of the UNRWA is the reason you're seeing so many Gofundmes nowadays. The entire aid system is gone with the exception of local aid organisations that have limited reach.

So if you see a credible fundraiser, please at the very least share it so it can reach more people. This list by @el-shab-hussein is a good place to start.

My Electric wheelchair is sadly now 12 years old and is being held together with gaffer tape and love! I really need a new one and as it is my 50th Birthday this April thought I could try to fund-raise and ask folks to please help with buying a replacement chair.

'Just Giving' Wheelchair fund-raiser link Here

About Nixxie - My Wheelchair is my lifeline. I use it inside my flat to get about as my body sadly doesn't work anymore (please read the Just giving page for details on my disabilities). I also use the chair to get out into my garden... and also anytime I need to leave the house - it gets a lot of mileage - hence why it is sadly starting to show its age! About 3 years ago the welding that holds on the arm failed and cannot be repaired - so the arm bracket is held on with gaffer tape and hot-glue. The batteries hardly hold any charge anymore, one of the wheel-arches got plastic fatigue a few years ago and just plain twisted off! Also all the under panels are held on with velcro, tape and hope! (pictures of all this on the donation page).

I originally bought my powerchair in 2012 to go to London as I'd won tickets to visit the Paralympics with a carer... however I don't trust it now to even go a few miles as I'm petrified another bit will fall off!! A while after I bought my chair I went to a Sci-Fi convention and dressed my wheelchair up as the Tardis to match my costume... I liked it so much that my chair has been Tardis cosplaying ever since!

I try my hardest to still live a life worth living - and even though my body needs to recover for ages afterwards I still try to get out every now and then to do something good.

So that's about it - my diagnosis is that I will never get any better (In fact it's likely I'll carry on getting worse as I get older), so I thought to put this page up to get help in the fundraising as wheelchairs cost a huge amount more than people think and sadly there is no way I can afford it alone. So please if you could, donate - Even if it's only a bit - anything towards being able to go out safely would be SO Amazing and I am utterly thankful to you for your aid.

And please please share this page to spread the joy! *hugs*

A picture of the painting I've been doing a study of for 3 months just showed up on my dash and gave me whiplash. It's the first time I've seen the painting in the wild, and I've been staring at it so intensely for the past 3 months that I've formed this weirdly personal relationship with it. I feel like I've just run into someone I know at the grocery store but I'm dressed so rat-like that I instantly run down another isle to avoid them.

Total Solar Eclipse l April 2024 l U.S. & Canada

Cr. Deran Hall l Rami Ammoun(236) l GabeWasylko l OThingstodo l ZachHolderWx l Joshua Intini l Alfredo Juárez l KuzcoKhanda

getting to know my mutuals and followers: if you had to sing karaoke on the spot RIGHT NOW what would your go to song be reply in the tags

Have and Have Not (2006) Crystal Schenk

This is absolutely legit, and here's a video on how to navigate this from NPR! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sPBF53vPALA

I feel like I should make a post about this because it’s not something that’s very well-known, and that Americans in particular may need to know about given the uncertain state of our healthcare system at the moment. I’ve wanted to write this out for a while, It’s kind of a long post, so sorry about that!

If you have an emergency and have to go to the hospital, you’ll owe the hospital a lot of money. (I got into a car wreck and broke my ankle and my arm. My hospital bill was around $20,000)

You’ll also owe the ambulance provider, if you need one. (My ambulance bill was about $800)

You may get separate bills from the anesthesiologist or surgeon. (My anesthesiologist bill was $1,700)

You may need follow-up appointments. (My orthopedic surgeon billed me for the appointments and his surgery together and it was about $1,000)

You’ve also got to pay for medical equipment you need afterward, like crutches or a walking boot. (Mine cost about $75)

Altogether, I ended up with almost $24,000 in medical debt from one car accident. That’s a really scary number for someone like me who makes $10/hr at a 12 hour a week job.

I got my debt down to $1075 by making some phone calls and submitting some paperwork.

The first thing I did was contact the hospital. They don’t make it easy to find, but many hospitals (perhaps most hospitals?) have financial assistance programs for people who can’t afford medical bills. I don’t make a lot of money, and I have bills to pay, so they were able to help me. I called the billing department and asked if they had any assistance programs for low income people who can’t pay their bills. I had to call multiple times, and I got transferred in circles by people who didn’t know what I was talking about. Finally, I got an appointment with someone in “Eligibility Services” (I don’t know what other hospitals call it, if it’s something different). I had to bring my pay stubs and copies of all of my bills. When I got to the hospital for the appointment, nobody knew what I was talking about so I had to wander a little to find where I needed to go. I spoke with the guy in Eligibility Services, and I waited for a decision on how much of the bill they would forgive. A month later, I got a call telling me it was totally forgiven.

I did the same thing for my ambulance bill and my anesthesiologist, but the process was a LOT easier. I just had to mail some paperwork and it was totally forgiven.

I didn’t bother with the medical equipment suppliers, since the bills came from separate companies and I didn’t feel like going through the process twice for $75. I was assured at the hospital that they had similar programs for debt forgiveness, so I could have probably avoided paying that too.

The only thing I couldn’t get taken care of was the surgeon/follow-up appointment cost, but they were able to put me on a no-interest payment plan.

Medical debt is scary because it’s something that can come from stuff that’s already really scary. I didn’t need the burden of $24,000 in debt on top of trying to get around on a crutch with a broken arm (it’s not easy, believe me!).. but I can’t imagine what it would be like with a bigger debt or a more severe medical emergency. I see lots of people in even worse trouble than I was in, both financially and medically. Please know that there are options for you when that GoFundMe doesn’t do enough. Even if your income is higher than mine, it’s worth a shot even for partial debt forgiveness.

Comic about what Amity told Hunter in Eclipse Lake

the whole “i used to be a teen who hated authority only to grow up to become the authority that hates teens” is a bad bad thing that practically every other generation has fallen into and we all need to make an extremely conscious effort not to repeat the fucking pattern

I remain unbooped

Rb for larger data set yadda yadda

I just....I just learned that there's a word in the English language...for when you run into someone to hug them with all the enthusiasm and strength you have....I learned that it's called glomp.

My God, English has so many words to describe physical intimacy, I'm in love

I have subscribed to 3 newsletters this month. The internet has either entered a new era, or I have gotten old.

it goes against so much of what i stand for to share "palestinians are humans, they have hobbies, they have pets, they laugh and cry" kind of posts because i've spent so much of my life and career completely rejecting the notion that we should humanize ourselves, that we should ever be defensive, that we should entertain this racism at all

but it breaks my heart when i have to share them from people in gaza, who are using their five minutes of internet connection, their 25% of battery charge collected from a macguyvered car battery, emotionally exhausted, thirsty and hungry, sleeping in schools that have turned into refugee shelters and still making the time to say "please, i am human too, i am still alive, please fight for me" in english to appeal to the only people who have the power to help

i shared a tweet from a jjk artist in gaza i follow about a bts photocard being found in the middle of the rubble. even the love of anime and kpop and sports is no longer just a hobby, but an appeal to humanity. what was once a source of joy is now proof of life.

the worst part is that you won't find this content in arabic. palestinians don't post like this in arabic. but when they translate themselves, they recognize that they must humanize themselves first. it's an unspoken understanding of dehumanization, one that has dictated a whole region's understanding of the value of human life. in arabic they speak with dignity, with anger, with sorrow. in english, they appeal for their existence.

i share these posts not just because we have to reach everyone we can, because im being asked to and i will not refuse. but i also share them because they're evidence of how deep the racism has run. at what dehumanization leads to. of war crime after war crime. this too i will not forget.