A fundraiser has been opened for Hunter Young, who sings and plays guitar in Moodring and also plays in Psycho-Frame. The statement attached to it sets out a situation that has been getting worse for three years.
Young has ME/CFS, dysautonomia and small fiber polyneuropathy, diagnosed three years ago. "ME/CFS has led to Hunter needing full time care (which he currently does not have) and being unable to work, especially these last few months, and he needs to secure housing," it reads. "He currently spends an average of 23 hours a day in complete silence and darkness due to how much pain ME/CFS causes him. He has also lost 60lbs since July due to his inability to eat and digest food."
The treatment he has been recommended, intravenous immunoglobulin for the burning the neuropathy causes, is costed at roughly ten thousand dollars a dose and a hundred thousand dollars a year. He is uninsured and, the statement says, qualifies for none of the programmes that would change that at present, because the assistance schemes that exist only open once treatment has started. He is trying to get back to Florida, near his family, to find somewhere to live and to begin.
"Creating this fundraiser was not an easy decision, but he is running out of options," the statement ends. "At the very least it buys him some time to get the rest he has been quite literally begging for." Without help, it says, the money runs out inside two or three months.