I’ve written multiple times before about how influential jaylake has been in the short time I’ve known him: on my writing, on my sense of self, on my sense of the world outside of myself. Jay’s an inspiration, and not solely because of his on-going struggle with stage 4 metastatic cancer.
Right now, there are two fundraisers/crowd-sourcing efforts going on involving Jay, that I’d like to share with you.
The first is the Kickstarter project for the documentary LAKESIDE, which started filming in 2012 with the intent of documenting a year in Jay’s professional and personal life, including how surgeries and chemotherapy affected both. The producers had no idea that mid-filming, Jay would receive another cancer diagnosis, with three tumors appearing in his already resected liver, and further complications since then. I’ve contributed to the Kickstarter already, and it has hit full funding, but the producers still have more filming and post-production work to do, and now hope to follow Jay through to the end (be it happy or sad) of this latest series of surgeries and chemo treatments. I’ll have an interview coming up on my website with the lead producer/director as soon as we can finalize it. In the meantime, please visit the LAKESIDE Kickstarter page and donate. The money doesn’t (cannot, for legal reasons apparently) go directly to Jay, but it can help make sure Jay’s story is told in the detail it deserves.
The second fundraiser does go to Jay directly. Jay is nearing the end of possible treatment courses, and his doctors aren’t really sure where to go next. There is a new procedure called “whole genome sequencing.” It’s expensive, and it’s new, and it very possibly could help Jay’s doctors discover precisely where to target treatment in his already compromised and ravaged body, to give him a better shot at surviving this and living long enough to at least see his daughter graduate from high school. A group of famous, award-winning science fiction and fantasy writers have agreed to perform various Acts of Whimsy on the internet if the fundraiser hits certain goals. This is what I love about the SF/F community I am slowly becoming a part of: the way they (“we” still feels odd to say) come together to support each other. My first taste of this was the fundraiser for Terri Windling and her family last year, and it’s happening again with Jay. Here’s the link to contribute: every penny goes to cover the procedure first, and then to helping Jay and his daughter with the expenses that Jay’s insurance doesn’t cover.