Help Light the Long Dark of 2016

Help Light the Long Dark of 2016

Who Am I?

Hi, I’m Jack Norris. I’m a writer, game designer, and attorney in the Chicago area. I’m married to a lovely woman, Lauren, and we’ve got no kids and two cats. We share a nice, small apartment on Chicago’s north side. Given the nature of my work, I tend to earn nearly all my money on an assignment and contract basis rather than salary. This results in regular periods of financial flux I’ve long since become accustomed to dealing with. However, 2016 has become one long extended period of financial, emotional, and personal developments and now finally I’m here, asking for your help.

In essence, I am asking for crowdfunded support to help me and my family survive a series of events that involves underemployment, unemployment, disease, death, and other problems.  What events? Well, let’s look at those next, shall we?

The Story So Far…

Apologies if this is long and occasionally a bit meandering. However, I figure folks should get something if they’re going to consider helping me and my family and this account of how I came to be asking for assistance is the least I can do.

So 2016 started out okay. New Years was fun and work was going well. Even had the chance to take a micro-honeymoon with the wife by extended our stay in Seattle for a gaming con we’d been invited to by two extra days. Not everything was perfect, but when is it? I went into 2016 with a bit of optimism, several promising opportunities, and ample resources to weather the normal amount of calamity that comes with any period of time.  I was even speaking to my friend Jim about traveling to South America to visit him. He was a dear and old friend, more like a brother than a buddy, and I missed him.

So all told? 2016 was looking pretty decent back in January.

Yeah, so…it’s now September and (apologies for my vulgar but sincere assessment) 2016 can eat a flaming dick. The reasons why are at the core of how this crowdfunding endeavor came to be.

First, all my cases at work dried up. Not one, not most…all. As an attorney at a small firm in Chicago, I basically get paid when there’s money and work to be had. It can be a great arrangement, affording me time to write and design and pursue other endeavors. The pay, when work is present and profitable, affords me some cushion in leaner times. It also can be frustrating, especially when two solid streams of regular revenue settle unexpectedly at the same time and all other work for the year slows to a halt. But that’s okay, I planned for that…I had some time and money to get us through provided things didn’t get too bad.  I might even still make that trip…

Then our cat, Otto, took ill. The little guy was old, but this was more than that. He lost a ton of weight, refused to eat or drink, and was literally wasting away in front of us. It was emotionally hard and financially draining, but we managed to get him back to healthy by a mix of moderately expensive vet treatments and lots of care.  I was relieved; that cat had been with my wife for years and had personally comforted me through some rough times before in the way loyal pets so often do.

Then I ended up in the hospital. What was a “mild flu that won’t go away” turned into a trip to the ER and a realization that my blood pressure was so high I was, without exaggeration, a walking time bomb just waiting for my system to shut down. My body was, no exaggeration, taking the American Heart Association’s guidelines for “Hypertensive Crisis” and saying “Hey, I think I can beat that by 50 points!” Months of treatment later I’m still in a dangerous place, but its trending better, but I need regular meds and doctor’s visits while the situation is brought under control.  I also need to lose weight, get and stay fit, and do other things that are vital but also at times costly in terms of various resources.

Then my friend Jim passed away. That’s right, remember the guy I was trying to go visit after years apart? He lost his own battle with illness. I still miss him every damned day. I logically know it that depressed me and caused me a lot of strife, but I pushed on because…what are you gonna do?

Then there was the car accident. Our sole car was totaled when my wife was rear-ended on her way home from work. This not only added stress, but a new car payment as the insurance covered the loss, but not to an extent where we could buy a new reliable car outright. So that meant new payments, new insurance, etc…

But hey, I had planned for this. I could do some extra work on the side, being mindful of my health, and we’d be fine? Right?  Honestly? At this point this was kind of a lie, the sort of self-deception we throw at ourselves when things are bad but we don’t want to admit how bad. But my father was nice enough to help me out a bit and his assistance convinced me that hey, the worst is past and we’ll slide right through the rest of the year—if only barely.

Then Otto died. He went from healthy for several months to just…gone. It was quick, but not so quick that we didn’t try one last round of treatments and the end result was a mix of vet and funerary expenses for our good boy at the end. It was also, to say the least, emotionally very difficult. I remember holding his body in the emergency vet clinic we’d taken him to when he’d stopped breathing and crying. You know that way when you can’t even make sounds anymore? Where it just hurts and you make some rasping, primal noise that’s nothing but loss and pain because you’re just not sure how much more you can really take? That me, sitting there with our dead cat, remembering my dead friend, worried about my health, and wondering how much worse it could get.

Around this time I was so stressed my doctor basically told me to not come back for a check-up right away. There was no point. My BP was still at critical levels despite multiple medications, my weight was creeping downwards at a snail’s pace, and it was clear to everyone what the culprit was…stress.  So I was told to actively clear out as much as I could and then come back to see where we were at.

So then we had to move. The security deposit and various other fees associated with the new place took a chunk, but we couldn’t afford to stay in our old place once all the roommates decided to go their separate ways after several years. Due to stress, health issues, work schedules, etc… we’d decided to hire movers. They did a great job, but the cost came in at nearly double their estimate due to having to move on a holiday weekend.  See, the several emergency vehicles, traffic, bickering holiday crowds, and other problems slowed the progress of the truck and the movers beyond anyone’s control. The moving guys even massaged the time for us where they could, but they were on the clock and that meant our affordable move became yet another big unplanned expense.

Around that time, after or before…it all starts to blur together…I ended up needing a root canal and a crown. Dental insurance was a blessing, but it’s still not the larger coverage most medical insurance provides and that became expensive.  Later that year Lauren would have her own trip to the dentist that would rack up more bills.  Unfortunately, I was informed by my dentist I have one more procedure that needs doing soon or I risk another expensive root canal and crown later on.

There’s other stuff too. Little expenses that added up, big ones I’m probably blanking on. Even a family crisis or two it’s not my place to talk about. It was, honestly, the worst year I’ve had in a long time. A year where I worked as hard if not harder than I had any other year and where I saw our resources and my ability to cope with additional stress and responsibilities erode with each passing day.

But despite it all, we were doing not completely terribly. I managed to get my BP down a bit and get slowly in better shape. Lauren and I had some rocky moments due to all the stress of the year, but we weathered that and were doing okay. Things looked like maybe they were finally going to be okay.

Then my mom called. Dad had been wrestling with what we thought was a leg or knee injury that was making it hard for him to stand and walk without falling since our wedding last year.  It wasn’t a highly publicized thing, just something the family was dealing with. I’d gone back regularly during the year to help do some big tasks and errands as neither of my folks were suddenly very mobile and they needed the help.  Sometimes it was hard to schedule, but what are you gonna do?

Well, it turns out Dad kept falling. Then he had trouble walking at all. In short order he went from knee brace to cane to walker to chair. Then the doctor’s started looking harder. They thought he had a stroke and started to treat for that. I came down more frequently and did everything from rearrange the house to make it more wheelchair accessible to just have long talks with dad to keep him positive about therapy and recovery. 

Then around when I was supposed to go to Gen Con to work at the Green Ronin Publishing booth, Dad wasn’t able to get upstairs anymore without my help. Or to the car. Eventually he needed help getting out of bed. So despite being in Indy for the con and having come a week early to do whatever my parents needed? I ended up skipping the whole affair. Instead I spent weeks helping my folks move my dad around the house, help him get to doctor’s appointments, and so on.  It was basically all I did for late July and August, aside from stealing enough time to keep my various projects and work from completely imploding. It’s what I’m still doing.

When the Dragon Age Core Rulebook, a game I put a lot of effort into and was the line developer for won the Gold Ennie for Best Game at Gen Con? I was passed out only twenty minutes away from exhaustion and almost sick with a growing realization that there was something very wrong with my father. It should have been one of my best years at the Con…with Dragon Age, the Sword Coast Adventurer’s Guide (which I also worked on) getting recognized as top works. Hell, I even could borrow a bit of minor credit from Atlas Games’ Feng Shui 2 winning Best Setting since I did some setting work for the additional products for that line.  It should have been a triumphant affair. Instead I had no energy, time, and was all but out of money by the time the con wrapped…and I never even attended for one single minute.

But that would have been all right if that would have been the last of it. If dad’s new therapy would have helped and the home care he was arranging would have been sufficient to aid in recovery. I might have saddled myself with too much debt and barely survived the bulk of 2016, but I would have made it.  We might have lost our insurance when stress and increasing migraines made it clear my wife needed to find a new job that was less harmful to her own health, but hey, we were gonna be okay!

That was about when we found out dad has a brain tumor. He’s currently hospital ridden and on bad days very confused. He goes from being the disabled military vet and civil servant I grew up with as one of my role models to not knowing the year and looking to me for guidance and authority.

“I’m going to do what you tell me I need to do to get better, Jack” he tells me.  Which is sweet, and also terrible.

The tumor is still growing and both treatment and prognosis is still in flux, but it frankly looks that best case scenario he and my mother will need a lot of help and support from me and Lauren for the foreseeable future. In the worst case scenario? Well, I don’t think I need to spell that out, do I?

So yeah, I’m basically done now. The brave face, the “hey we can make it!” is a thing of past. I’m determined to make it through this damned year if it kills me, but on a realistic level I’ve come to understand I probably can’t do that as things stand.  Especially if they get worse.  I started to seriously consider what options there were to secure aid, additional funds, or something to help.  Which brings us to this GoFundMe.

In the week or so since I made this decision? Our other cat, Fivel, got sick. More tests, more bills.  And over the day I composed this our portable air conditioner unit for our apartment started leaking all over the floor.  Then my phone stopped working, making it harder by far to keep in contact with my mom and dad.  And I seem to have injured my neck somehow.

So I’m pretty sure I’m going to get hit by a falling satellite tomorrow if things continue on this trend, but if I don’t? I could really use some additional financial assistance.

How Donating Helps

So how does asking for money help? Wouldn’t it be better to just help me figure out which of my ancestors offended the village sorcerer centuries ago so we can lift the curse of 2016? Well…

Let’s be frank. Money helps. It can’t buy happiness, but it can buy medications, insurance, transportation, shelter, and a whole mess of other things. And at this point? Barring selling my modest assortment of personal possessions for pennies on the dollar—I really don’t have much of real value to generate the additional funds to really improve our situation.

I had those things. I worked hard for them. But they’re gone now.  Furthermore, I’ve basically exhausted my considerable past ability to basically magic up more resources, financial and otherwise, through taking on additional work and putting in extra hours.

My various projects, of which there are several, can’t handle additions. My finances, which were once ample to the challenges ahead, have been eroded by crisis after crisis. My health and stress levels, though it pains me to admit it, prevents pushing too far into the all-nighters and rush jobs of past years. 

Add to this needing to travel more frequently and arrange my schedule to allow for handling of family affairs mixed with juggling past expenses from problems that have already erupted and its becoming a dire situation financially. I’ve already lost at least a full month of work to helping family, traveling, etc… and that’s not the end of it. Add to this the aforementioned expenses and the mix of lost revenue and increased expenses is a devastating one-two punch.

There’s also the raw self-assessment that with the death of dear friend, the death of a beloved pet, various catastrophes and calamities, my father’s condition and the work that’s already piled up while helping my family? I need to seek some form of help for depression, stress, etc… That’s just a thing that needs to happen.  But, of course, this sort of thing costs money as well.

So financial assistance buys me and my family time, resources, and relief. That’s why I’m asking. I don’t like doing it (too much middle-American middle/lower class generational pride, I guess), but I’m almost out of options and some good friends have convinced me this campaign could help.

What You Get Out of It?

Honestly? Nothing direct. I thought about posting stories or something similar but that sadly just ends up tacking on additional requirements to my obligations that just risk putting me back at dangerous levels of stress.  That doesn’t mean I might not write a story or two or do something fun and post it for folks, but I’m not going to promise that or make it part of this campaign.

What you do get is my thanks and the feeling of helping people who really need it. If you want to be more mercenary or practical, if you like the work I’ve done in the past as a writer, game designer, or just a guy you’ve interacted with has value? Giving now greatly increases I can keep doing that sort of thing in the future. 

In any event, I appreciate you taking the time to read this and consider helping out.

Why the Amount?

Some might be curious why I set the target goal at the amount I did. Honestly? It’s not a magic number that is carefully calculated to eliminate all debts and expenses. It’s based on a joke that turned out to be a solid estimate by coincidence.

Recently, when things were really starting to get dire, a friend asked me “Is there anything I can do?” I, being in a bit of mood, quipped “Can you convince everyone on my social media feed to throw me 20 bucks?” A moment later I was struck by just how damned much that “joke” would help.  So I basically took my largest social media account and multiplied my followers/friends by 20.  I don’t really expect that level of support (though I could definitely figure out how to use it to help myself and my family), but GoFundMe made me put in a number, so there it is.

However, shortly after settling on a request in this range? I crunched some numbers including medical expenses, other bills, travel expenses, and time lost to illness and calamity and honestly? I could find go use for such an amount. So I decided to keep it.

A Final Thanks

To the couple of people who already sent me some assistance outside this campaign? Thank you. It really helped. To the people who sat me down and convinced me to swallow my pride and ask for help in this way? Also, thanks. I always tell others there’s no shame in asking for help and there I was not doing it.

Pictured Above

The picture at the top of this page includes the folllowing. Lauren and our two cats (Otto, who passed, and Fivel who is ill), my father officiating our wedding when he was still able to walk and such (he started falling that weekend), another pic of Otto shortly before he passed, and pictures of myself and Lauren happy during the 2015 holidays right before all this crap started.