Support for Jackie

About a month ago, Jackie was in Minneapolis for an interactive art conference. She fell asleep while wearing her contact lenses and scratched her cornea, which she thought was a particle in her eye. Following what she thought she learned in middle school science class, she tried to flush her eyes out with tap water and her eye was infected with a rare akanthamoeba (a multi-cellular organism). 

This resulted in weeks of daily trips to the hospital, visits with multiple doctors, specialists and fellows, escorted by her loving and wonderful boyfriend, Ty, in a city they had just moved to the month before.  Treatment included multiple corneal "peelings" which have been incredibly expensive and painful.  She is currently on four different medications (down from the six she was on last week) including drops that must be administered hourly.

Over the last few weeks, Jackie has lost her sight in her left eye, and will be legally blind indefinitely. There is the possibility of surgery six months down the line.

Because of all this, Jackie has accrued many expensive medical bills, had to take the semester off from grad school, and thus left her without a job. But the real tragedy is that this has all infected her shooting eye.

For those of you who don't know, Jackie is an amazingly talented photographer and videographer, and had just moved to Boston to complete her MFA at Lesley University in Visual Studies. Losing sight in her shooting eye has left her without a creative outlet during this difficult time, and her primary source of income. 

Anyone who knows Jackie knows how proud and independent she is. She did not ask for this to be set up, but I know that there are so many of us that love Jackie and would want to support her during this difficult time .

All donations would be used to help lessen the financial burden of her medical bills and lost income.  Any donation would be much appreciated, as well as keeping Jackie in your thoughts and prayers while she recovers.