My name is Tom Tenney, and for more than 3 decades I dedicated my life to creating art — comics, animation, music — pouring everything I had into projects for Marvel, DC, Image, Comico and even the legendary rock band AC/DC. Art wasn’t just my career… it was my passion and the way I provided for my family as well as connected to the world.
I’m living with advanced COPD, a progressive, debilitating illness that has no cure. This disease has taken away my ability to work and breathe normally. The past few months have become some of the hardest of mine and my family's life. My health has declined significantly, and every day has become more of a fight for my life. Advanced COPD directly affects my breathing and my heart rate. Simple moments — standing up, walking across the room, even talking for too long — drain me in ways I can’t describe.
It's a constant reminder of just how fragile my life has become. Every day has become an uphill fight for air, strength, and stability. As my health continues to decline, so does our finances — everything has finally collapsed.
But this GoFundMe is not just about me.
My life partner is a diabetic whose health is also fragile, and through her disease she cares for her autistic daughter, who depends on routine, stability, and a safe environment.
As finances begun to collapse we lost our home in Florida and were forced to move north hoping to gain some new footing. But it's been a battle filled with just as many, if not more obstacles. Since our move we've gone through and been going through sleeping on friend's couches, sleeping in the car and losing practically everything we owned. We are barely scraping by and about destitute.
Over the last few months I've had multiple hospital stays and that has slowed me down from doing any consistent art work or me being able to bring in any money through any convention or comic shop appearances. We are struggling to afford even the most daily of essentials and medications being prescribed me or the oxygen required that the hospital wants me on daily. We even loss our precious pup that brought us great happiness.
Trying to manage advanced COPD — requiring medication, oxygen support, the ability to rest — while trying to live in an unstable environment has been terrifying. All of it is dangerous for someone in my condition. It’s dangerous for any family, especially for us right now.
There’s no backup plan. It is truly life-or-death urgency now.
We're not in a good place and asking for a chance to survive and overcome this. As fast as money comes in, it's spent just trying to make it through another day. The fact is that the cost of surviving COPD has made it one of the most expensive diseases to treat to date.
Every dollar raised goes toward:
Life-sustaining medications, oxygen and medical care
Basic survival needs — food and other essentials.
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, but there is none and we cannot do this alone. Without my art to rely on, it's made it almost impossible to bring in any steady finances.
We are really in need of your help.
If you can donate — anything — to assist us and help keep precious air in my lungs.
If you cannot donate, please share this. Visibility could save my life and help save my family.
Thank you for reading. Thank you for caring. And thank you for giving us a chance to make it through this.
If you please share our GoFundMe link it would mean the world to me and my family.
Every share could reach someone who can, help with medications, essentials or simply get us through another day. Every act of kindness matters more than you know.
I’m frightened, I’m exhausted. And I’m fighting every single day to survive as hard as I can.
The GoFundMe link is:
Thank you Thomas A. Tenney