Crowdfunding to help science fiction great Mike Resnick pay off the medical bills from a near-death experience
Mitch Wagner writes, "Talented and prolific science fiction writer and editor Mike Resnick, who has written extensively over the course of a long career about colonialism and its legacies, with a particular focus and love for Africa, has had a near-death experience and started a GoFundMe to pay off his medical expenses. I'm a huge fan of Resnick, particularly his novel Santiago and African stories, and I'm saddened to learn about this."
Resnick's crowdfunder is nearly at its goal -- $27k out of $30k as of this writing -- but this is an important reminder of the urgency of Medicare for All. America is a country where even very successful artists who don't start out rich can have all they've worked for stripped away in an instant by a freak medical occurrence. Resnick is just one of many beloved artists in this situation, and crowdfunding is not a sustainable solution.
I chipped into Mike's fund, but I'm also continuing to give money to the two Medicare for All candidates for the Democratic party in the 2020 presidential election: Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren.
Mike unfortunately spent most of the first half of 2019 in the hospital. At the start of the year he fell twice for some (then) unknown reason, the second time being unable to get up. Carol, his wife, had to call 911 and it was determined that he had pneumonia and acute idiopathic pericarditis. In three days he had 30 pounds of fluid drained from around his heart and lungs. Then, a couple of months later, he collapsed again and within 24 hours the hospital had removed his colon (large intestine). Not many seventy-seven-year-olds recover from such serious medical complications, and he is very lucky to be alive and writing today.
Although he is still confined to a wheelchair, Mike has just this month gone back to writing and editing, and his doctors are very pleased with his progress. But he did go more than half of this year without any income, and as you can imagine the hospital bills are many and prohibitively expensive, as well as half a year's worth of living expenses. He also still needs regular rehabilitation sessions (luckily, from the comfort of his home), and, quite frankly, he needs the assistance of the community of writers and readers he has had the privilege to call his family for more than half a century.
Help Mike Resnick pay off a near-death experience [Mike Resnick/Gofundme]
(Thanks, Mitch!)