My beloved daughter Jessica True, 56, has been sick for the past five years since a traumatic brain injury in the fall of 2020, when she was injured in an accident while sitting in her car at a red light.

Five weeks ago she was diagnosed with ALS, Lou Gehrig’s disease, a terminal illness. She is now largely bedridden, and needs help paying for specialized medical equipment and round the clock care.

Medicare will pay for all but $4,000 of the cost of a custom electric wheel chair. (She’s now using a loaner.) Other needs include an adjustable bed that can be raised and lowered as needed and programmed to automatically turn Jessica at intervals during the night so she doesn’t develop bed sores or pneumonia.

Importantly, she needs either a self-contained portable shower unit or an accessible shower added to her bathroom. She needs

wheelchair transport to the community therapy pool. Lastly she needs financial aid to make necessary adjustments to her home to accommodate her wheelchair (door widenings, ramps).

Right now her biggest need is for money to pay daily round the clock caretakers.

Jessica has been an athlete (climbing instructor, hiker, biker); gardener; a political and community activist (AIDS activist, Baltimore ACT UP, Water is a Human Right, Save the Farm, No Kings); and portrait and landscape painter throughout her life.

Please help me make her Living with ALS as comfortable and life enhancing as is possible. Thank you for any contribution you make. Small contributions like $20 will pay for a daily dog walk for Winston, her beloved basset hound “angel dog,” and one of the few things remaining that make her smile.

My deepest gratitude to you, each and all.

-- Shirley True