Wheels for Dialysis Patient!

I'm Marian Crane, also known as Filigree or @MCHana2 in several places online. Your donations can help me repair a 1993 Nissan Pathfinder and save my best friend's life.

I'm a writer, fiber artist, and ad-copy writer in Phoenix.

Since October 2017 I've also been the medical driver for my best friend Steve, a diabled veteran & InfoSec guru whose kidneys shut down. He has to go to dialysis 3 times a week. He shouldn't drive right now because of low vision from cataracts. 

Steve gets some SSDI money every month, but not much considering the medical and unemployment bills he's trying to pay down. Because of illness, he hasn't been able to work since April 2017.

Because I drive him & run errands for him, I can only work about 23 hours a week at my primary job. They are awesome at working around my odd schedule. I try to make a little extra with art sales and ad-copy gigs. 

Last Monday, my 18-year-old Subaru Impreza got rear-ended, pushing me into another vehicle. My insurance paid for damage to the vehicle I hit, but won't cover much of mine. The guy who hit me? He drove away without stopping. The police agreed it was his fault, and didn't even cite me. 

I towed the car to a body shop recommended by some mechanics I trust.  That body shop wanted $4200 to fix my car, and $300 just to release it so I could tow it home! My insurance is recommending I total the car, but they're only offering $800 for it.

Okay, fine, I decided to fight that battle next week, and got Veteran Steve's old Nissan Pathfinder running again (he hadn't been able to drive it since last September, so I got it emissioned, registered again, oil-changed, etc.) Both of our vehicles have about 240K miles each, btw.

Sometime between Monday June 11 and today June 14, 2018, a bolt broke on Veteran Steve's Pathfinder's control arm. I noticed the truck pulling slightly to the right this morning, thought it needed realignment, and hoped it would last the day.

Nope. It broke in a parking lot. You can see the tilted tire below. Poor Pathfinder. As the tow truck lowered it into a bay at the garage, the second bolt fell out. 


This was our only working car! My mechanic friends will try to save us money, but they may have to re-tap the screw holes, which got stripped when the bolts broke. They may have to install a new arm. Either way, we're going to be charged for their labor costs. Those could add up to $500 or more very quickly! 

Uber and Lyft cost more than we can afford for longterm use.

Use the bus in Phoenix? It's 115F out here in the day. Dialysis patients are extremely vulnerable to dehydration and heatstroke. If you have to go any distance (like my work) it's three buses and 1 hour 45 minutes one way. I know. I rode Phoenix buses for 7 years before getting my car. 

I've seen people sobbing in the dialysis clinic as they wait hours for medical transport after treatment. I swore Veteran Steve would always have someone on time who *cared* about him.

He would like to get scheduled for cataract surgery, so he can get back to the InfoSec work he knows & loves. The Social Security Administration would like him to get back to work. 

Whether I total or fix my Subaru, I need a good used vehicle that isn't Veteran Steve's Pathfinder. That way I can get back to work myself, writing fun ad-copy for cool companies and making weird pretty book art out of wood, leather, glass, and fabric. 



If you want to see more of my book art go here http://www.vampandtramp.com/finepress/c/cranedesigns.html

or here https://www.saatchiart.com/account/artworks/799858

I have neat stuff on Etsy, too. https://www.etsy.com/shop/CraneHanaDesigns

Literally anything folks can donate or buy will get our wheels restored, and let us claw our way out of crushing debt. 

Thank you, everyone.