Marc Longbrake's Medical Fund

My “2020” started a couple months early. September 2019 was the diagnosis and my surgery was one year ago, on November 13, 2019. The months that followed were … a challenge. My first time out of the house in any real way was the 2020 Omaha Film Festival in March. Six long days. In many ways very miserable but in so many more ways, amazing and incredible. I looked at that week as a spring board for the future, I had so many plans! Then the world ended. Or so it seemed. Everything shut down in the days directly after the festival. Of course it was only supposed to last a few weeks, maybe a month. And here we are. I’ve spent the last 8 months not really going out much, trying to protect myself and those around me. Being “high risk” and already buried in medical bills, the last thing I needed was to get sick from something that was a big unknown with no real “cure” (yet). So I’ve stayed home. Over the last couple months I’ve actually had a few nice opportunities to get out and shoot some photography and video which has been amazing socially and amazing financially. Every little bit helps. But mostly I’ve been home, waiting for the pandemic to end and planning. Planning the next Omaha Film Festival, planning what I’d like to do with photography and film. Like so many it’s been hard to keep the creative juices flowing through this time. But as I think about all of the amazing people that have supported me over this last year I was inspired.

So I made a gift for myself.

Occasionally I open the GoFundMe page and scroll through the names and reread the comments. The generosity of so many of my close friends and many people I barely know still blows me away. I wanted to commemorate the names in some way so I was getting ready to print them out on a sheet of paper and hang it by my computer so I’d see them every day and one thing led to another and the heart shaped list of names is now printed and framed and hanging in my house.

You all are my gift.

We’re not out of the woods yet. Follow-up doctor visits, medication, lingering side effects, lack of work, and tons of bills. But we’re getting there one day at a time.

Thanks to all of you!