My name is Thomas Tenney. Myself and my family are literally in a life or death situation.

I’ve spent over 30 years working in comics, drawing for Marvel, DC, Image, and others as well as in the music field. I’ve told stories about heroes surviving impossible odds.

I live with advanced COPD — a progressive, incurable lung disease. COPD slowly destroys your ability to breathe. Every breath becomes work. Your lungs cannot properly move oxygen into your body. There is no cure. There is no reversing it. It only gets worse.

Simple things — walking across a room, standing up, even sleeping — can leave me gasping for air. Infections, cold weather, stress, or lack of proper rest can be deadly.

There's no easy way to say this but we are officially homeless. For the last few weeks we've been splitting our time between couch hopping at friend's places to shelters to sleeping in the car. It's what we've had to do to survive. And it's taking its toll on us all, especially my health. Especially after going through two winter storms.

Living this way with advanced COPD is brutal. The cold air, exhaustion, poor sleep and constant stress is making it even harder on my body. Every day feels harder, every breath feels heavier. And recently had me enter the hospital again. It's what doctors warned me could happen.

I'm doing everything I can to hold on, but living in the car in not sustainable for my family or for someone with my health condition. It's wearing us all down physically and mentally in ways I can't ignore. With Christina being diabetic and Becca's autism, the problem is even more pressing. Feeling overwhelmed, the loss of routine, stability and watching them deal with it all breaks my heart.

We're not asking for comfort.

We're asking for a chance to survive and overcome this.

Every dollar raised will go toward:

Trying to secure a roof over our heads immediately

Life-sustaining medications and medical care

Basic survival needs — food, utilities, etc.

Keeping our family together and alive

I wish I didn’t have to write this. I wish pride or strength mattered more than survival. I wish there was an easy answer, and we cannot do this alone.

If you can donate — anything — to help us get a roof over our heads and air in my lungs.

If you cannot donate, please share this. Visibility could save my life.

Thank you for reading. Thank you for caring. And thank you for giving us a chance to survive this.

— Thomas