Surgery Fundraiser for Jim Wirt

My pal Jimmy Lee Wirt, is one of the nicest guys I know. A creative: a musician, artist, web designer multi-media artist and producer.  He’s always there for people when they need help. 

He's been quietly suffering for quite some time now and as of late it's gotten chronic, more difficult for him to keep it to himself.

He was originally diagnosed with Crohn's Disease in 1980 at the age of 14. After many years of battling the disease, he was operated on in 2004 to have a section of his lower intestine removed. 11 years later the disease started making a comeback in November of 2014. Recently, he’s been so sick that it’s been nearly impossible for him to do his daily work, let alone anything else, for almost 2 months. The pain has caused loss of sleep and focus.

He's currently in the process of finding a specialist who can give him the treatment he needs, but the wait could be longer than the need for the treatment.  Your donations will go to medical expenses, bills and food to provide some relief for Jim so he can find better care and have some relief from this uncomfortable bout with a disease that could lead to another operation for him. 

Crohn’s disease as far as I understand it, in his case, causes internal bleeding in the intestines and then scarring, then the cycle repeats.  In a worst case scenario, the scarring causes the passageways to get more narrow and then that area may have to be surgically removed to get the intestines back to normal.

He's described the pain as "that stitch in your side when you run too hard, but times 10".  Sleeping through the night has been nearly impossible, as well as focusing on the work he needs to do to get through the month.  The lack of economic support has affected everything. Keeping up with bills, doing the quality of work his clients have been used to and maintaining his composure has been disrupted with this new attack of suffering from the ravage of this disease.

Let’s give Jim some support to go through this time with some sense of ease.  Thanks for being so kind.

(When he's not in pain or going through all of this he does freelance work (webdesign, logos, promotional materials for live shows, album cover art etc) for numerous people in the comedy and rock and roll communities. (Also he has a lot of original pop songs that he’s written that are amazing!) His vines and short films are very funny as well.  Get well Jim.  Hope this helps!)

To learn more about Crohn's, please visit the Crohn's and Colitis Foundation Of America's website.