Afternoon or evenin’, Jackals. ‘Tis I, your erstwhile, post starting and not finishing, friendly neighborhood sometimeish front pager. It’s a busy life in chez Rue and I have a lot to catch y’all up on. It’s been a lot. However, tonight’s post is not about me, it’s about Friend of the Blog and Jackal, Larime. In case you don’t know, Larime & Sylv have been going through a tough time from late last year to now. The great news is two-fold. Sylv is out the hospital after her surgery and recuperating back at home. And, Larime wrote this kick-ass comic book – Sex on Wheels. But, enough from me, let’s let Larime speak in his own words. Donations are truly needed and if you have art needs, please, order a commission. Buy a book. Below are the amazing cast portraits Larime did for my podcast audiodrama, Fast Track To 40. Help an artist out, eh?

Some of you may remember me from pet portraits I did for John over the years – I’m disabled and draw with my mouth. Sylv, my spouse of 25 years, is also disabled. We’ve had our rough patches and successes over the years, but this year has started out as the hardest, yet.

On January 12th Sylv went into the ER with what we thought was pneumonia from COVID. We’d both been sick right after Christmas, I got better, they did not. Scans showed over a liter of fluid in one lung, and about a third of that in the other. They were admitted, and a couple days later had the worse lung drained. There were enzymes in their blood tests that gave the doctors concerns about heart issues, and after a series of tests, they decided to do a cath (run a tiny camera up into the heart via the thigh).

Sylv has bad genes on both sides of the family, and the doctors said their heart was the weakest and worst they’d ever seen in someone their age. A bypass was ruled out because the veins and arteries were all too small and fragile for harvesting, so they decided to do 5 stents between two arteries. When working on the second artery, Sylv coded. Twice. CPR was successful both times, and the procedure finished.

After a week in the cardiac ICU, then another in a rehab wing, they finally discharged Sylv a month after they first went in. They got a nifty DVT (deep vein thrombosis) in the right thigh as a parting gift, and now we have about $1k in monthly prescriptions between crazy-expensive blood thinners, blood pressure meds, cholesterol meds, and a number of other things they’ll be on for life to keep from having any future heart attacks. They are uninsured (not by choice, it’s a looooong story) and I haven’t even looked at the hospital bills yet. We’re low-income disabled people. You can’t get blood from a stone.

During all of this, I was completely on my own for a month except for two visits a day from a friend I’m paying as my aid for an hour each visit. I had to eat delivery, order groceries delivery, go out to get drinks after my initial drinks were gone, and could only use the restroom twice a day. I survived it, it was nothing compared to what Sylv was dealing with.

Now we’re just trying to recover and rebuild. Sylv isn’t able to help me load up and unload all my gear I need to go draw caricatures on the Strip, my normal gig I support us with. We burned through everything we had getting to this point, and without regular work, we’re in a bad spot. Anything and everything is appreciated.

If you’d like art, you can check out my online shop here: https://store.sendowl.com/s/5fa9ad67-17ae-4eaf-a85f-985227fb3f2a

If you just want to help, my PayPal and Zelle are xlarimex (at) gmail (dot) com. My Cash App is $LarimeTaylor. I don’t have Venmo, and Go Fund Me takes several days to clear, and I have rent and bills due in three days and it might not clear fast enough.

Thank you all, and we’re so sorry we have to ask, but your help is hugely appreciated.