Amie is going to be mad when she sees this. She has never asked anyone for anything in her life. So I'm asking on her behalf and I'll take the earful later.

Most of you know her. A lot of you know her because she does your books. Some of you go back further, from her days at Deb's, or when she was running the Orange Cat bookstore.

For years she's kept the numbers straight for small businesses around here, quietly and on time. Some of you know she's done work she never billed for, because she knew what a hard month looked like and wasn't going to add to it. I told her more than once that if a client doesn't pay, you stop working for them. She never could do it. She's put in the same countless unpaid hours for nonprofits and community groups in this town. That's who she is, and it's part of why there's no cushion under her now.

She has worked hard her whole adult life, raised her son, and provided for him.

Since January we've been on a medical journey with no name on it. Appointments, tests, specialists, referrals, a lot of driving, and a lot of not knowing. We finally got the answer, and the answer is cancer.

Her care team is at UCSF in San Francisco. She's already down there, looking at a lengthy stay.

I'm her brother and her healthcare proxy, so I'm the one making the trip back and forth — four to six hours each way, gas, a night in the city, meals, time away from my own work. There will be a lot more of them.

If you're one of her clients: her ex-husband and her son are stepping in to keep payroll and existing accounts running, so that work won't drop. But her self-employment income is about to be cut drastically, and there's no savings behind her. The income stops and the bills don't.

Amie has also been the one caring for her son. With her in San Francisco, he still needs care, and that has to be covered now, not whenever the paperwork clears. We're pursuing social services and every resource we can find, but those systems move slowly and we're out of runway.

What we're covering in the meantime:

Travel back and forth to UCSF, gas and lodging

Care for her son while she's away

Household bills, groceries, and getting her place ready for her to come home to

Anything helps, and sharing helps just as much. If Amie has ever balanced your books, caught your mistake before the IRS did, answered the phone when you were panicking about a deadline, or done it without sending you a bill, this is the moment to send it back her way.

I'll post updates here so you can see where every dollar goes.

Thank you.

Garth