From Rock Bottom, With an Ember Still Burning

I started this campaign to help me survive the present — and build what comes next.

Since launching my campaign a couple weeks ago, I am overwhelmed with gratitude: thirty generous friends and donors have supported my cause; they already made a profound difference — covering mounting medical bills, medications, transportation to Stanford healthcare, copayments, and health insurance: I am deeply grateful.

But… as of June 15, there is the elephant in the room. If I fail to speak about it honestly, I might face the very real possibility of eviction, losing my apartment this week, and having to give up my three cats, because I would not be able to bring them with me while couch surfing, or worse. SoI owe you honesty about where things stand.

The other day, AT&T suspended my phone plan. As of today, Monday, June 15th, I have not yet paid my June rent. Even though I was able to raise $6k and more, I need to raise approximately the same, a minimum of $4,000 to $5,000 in the next few days to avoid losing everything, fast.

Let me paint you a picture of what survival actually costs in the Bay Area right now.

Aside from an unpaid hospital bill of over $6000, my rent increased recently and is now over $3,800 a month — it is a non-negotiable, or I lose my home and my cats lose theirs. Keeping the lights on, the phone working, and the internet running — essential for remote work and telehealth appointments — adds another $500. Groceries, which I keep as lean as possible (mostly produce, no meat or fish), still run at least $250 a week. Getting to Stanford and back for treatment — six trips a month minimum, each one $70 to $100 each way — adds up to roughly $1,000 monthly just in transportation. My injectable medications, which I cannot skip, cost $1,530 every three months. And my health insurance — the plan that gives me access to the Stanford team that is keeping me alive — runs approximately $1,700 a month, though that may change in July when my COBRA expires.

When I add it all up, just staying anfloat and in treatment at Stanford costs between $8,000 and $9,000 a month. Without income (at the moment), every week is a quiet calculation — what can wait, what cannot, what happens if I get this wrong.

I am not sharing these numbers to overwhelm you. I am sharing them because you deserve to know exactly what your generosity is up against — and what it’s protecting.

And here is what I know: if I can make it through the next four to six weeks, the picture will change. The consulting conversations I’ve been having are turning into real opportunities. The platform I’m building is gaining shape. The remote projects and roles I’m applying for are the right fit for where I am right now. I am not asking you to fund an indefinite situation. I am asking you to help me cross a bridge that has a visible other side. One more month of runway is the difference between this story ending here and this story becoming something worth telling.

Your support is not disappearing into a void. I am actively building a new AI-native human-first platform prototype, and applying for remote roles — all designed around my treatment schedule and current constraints. I am writing, creating, and building every day. Thirty years of design expertise in a rapidly shifting AI landscape is not nothing. This is not charity. It is an investment in someone who intends to make it count.

What worries me most, beyond the finances, are my cats. Michaël, Leo, and Mocha are my emotional support team — affectionate, deeply attached, and entirely dependent on me. Every night they traipse across my comforter looking for the perfect spot to nest: Michaël and Leo curled together, Mocha right next to my head. If I lose my apartment, I would be forced to give them up for adoption, likely separating them. For anyone who has known the bond between a cat and their human, you understand. Keeping them close is part of what keeps me going.

If this moves you, please donate — at any amount. If you cannot give right now, sharing this with someone who might be moved by it matters just as much. Every new person who finds this story extends what has already been made possible.

I am still here. Still writing. Still building. Still burning. Hope, and beauty, I've learned, can coexist with difficulty. My inner strength has not disappeared. It has simply been waiting for the right people (including my donors, my friends) to see not only someone in the middle of a health crisis, but someone with real potential, real expertise, and something genuinely worth building. I believe those people exist. I believe in giving each other a chance — regardless of circumstance — to contribute something larger than ourselves, something that gives our life a purpose and meaning. To make the world a little more human.

If you want to walk fast, walk alone.

If you want to walk far, walk together.

And I can’t wait to tell you what comes next.

With love and gratitude,

Abi

The initial fundraiser story

I’m writing this from home, my live/work space, where I’ve spent most of the past year. On my desk: a coffee with milk going cold, and two of my three cats — Michaël and Leo — lounging behind my Apple display on top of my Mac. Mocha, a chocolate point Siamese who has always known exactly who she is, looks at me in her quiet upright posture like a statue, barely moving. A Kepler’s canvas tote full of books awaits: I keep meaning to get through them. It’s a small, quiet life right now — and inside it, something is still burning.

I have been a designer for 25+ years. Not as a job title — as a way of seeing. I graduated from Art Center College of Design, spent a decade at Apple helping build tools that changed how people create and share photos, videos, and music, and have since led design at companies across three continents. I have worked on things that reached billions of people. I have always believed that technology, in the right hands, can feel genuinely human.

In the coming days, I will begin my first round of chemo. I have no income. I have depleted my savings. I am doing this alone, from the same desk where I've always worked, with the same conviction that what I make still matters — and a new, humbling awareness of how much I need help to get through this.

Your support goes directly toward basic living and medical expenses: treatment copays, medications, transportation to Stanford, and the everyday costs of staying alive while I cannot work on-site. Due to compromised immunity during treatment, I am not able to leave home easily — but I am writing, building, and documenting this journey honestly as it unfolds.

Alongside this campaign, I am building a personal website — a digital commonplace book — where I will publish that documentation: essays, visual work, and eventually digital goods and services. This campaign is the first chapter. What I build next depends on getting through this one.

What You Can Do

If this moves you, please donate — at any amount. Every contribution buys me time, and time is what I need most right now to get through treatment and build what comes next. If you can’t give right now, that’s completely okay. Sharing this with someone who might be moved by it matters just as much — sometimes more. The wider this reaches, the closer I get to the runway I need.

And if you — or someone in your network — needs strategic, hands-on design thinking for a digital product, platform, or early-stage venture, I'm available remotely and would love to connect. You’ll find me on LinkedIn at the link below.

If you want to follow where this goes, please check back for updates. I intend to make the journey worth your time. After all, making things that matter for other people — that's always been the whole point.

Visit my LinkedIn profile

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