Knowing the current economic state, most people don't have a lot of disposible income to spare.

However, I wanted to repost this link on behalf of my friend Nicole, a journalism student who was born with spina-bifida and lives in a small college town called Pullman in Eastern Washington, which is considered the rural half of our state.

Nicole is self-sufficient, resourceful and courageous, but as she is partially paralyzed, must rely on a heavy-duty scooter to get around town and to live an independent life.

The problem is that her old scooter finally broke down for the last time in February, and was deemed unfixable. Since then she has struggled to take care of basic necessities like running errands, buying groceries, getting around campus and getting to and from the library.

Eventually her plight trickled through the medicare system, and a new machine was prescribed for her through Deacon's Medical, which is great, but there was one major problem:

While medicare is contributing 2000 dollars toward the prescribed scooter, coming up with the remaining 2200 dollars is left up to Nicole- an almost impossible task, considering that like many disabled individuals, Nicole is on a tightly fixed income.

Amazingly, through a human interest newspaper article written by a friend in October, she has recieved the lion's share of the money already, which she is ecstatic over- but donations have stagnated now, and she is left a tantalizing 600 dollars away from her new scooter.

If she can raise the rest of the money within the next few weeks, she could still get her new scooter by Christmas, which would make her holiday travels vastly safer and less arduous.

I'm posting this because, though it's cliché, every little bit helps, and Nicole is an awesome human being with a phenomenally warm soul.

Often I will read through my f-list and find most everyone having an emotional crisis of some kind, but Nicole is always unfailingly happy to be alive. Even her darkest posts- about things like having been gone from LJ for a few days because of being hospitalized after unwittingly picking up a dangerous drug-resistant nosocomial staph infection in a foot she cannot feel pain in- are imbued with an optimistic humor.

She never feels sorry for herself, she never gives in, and she is always buoyant. I guess she was born with that too.

At the risk of sounding like an Afterschool Special:

She inspires me to always remember how charmed my life really is, and I want her life to be better and easier in return.

Here's a link to her LJ and the paypal button that Deacon's Medical has set up. Any amount donated goes directly into her scooter fund.

Any amount helps!

http://eveningscribe.livejournal.com/812455.html?mode=reply&style=mine


Thanks for letting me pimp my cause. <3

I'm not a slavering Heath Ledger fan, but I always thought he was a great actor, and frankly, I am shell-shocked that he's dead.

That is just too fucking senseless and a goddamned shame.