And now, a bedtime story.

I feel like I've been talking about this for weeks, which is odd. I mean, I have been talking about this for weeks, but I've also got short term memory issues, so it's kind of encouraging I remember at all. 

Anyhoodle...I need halp.

Me? I'm Lorraine Murphy, founding editor of The Cryptosphere, social media consultant, and freelance journalist covering hacktivism and cyberwar at Slate, Salon, Vanity Fair, Passcode, and other places. And I've probably gotten into a fight with you at least once on Twitter.

In September I moved from my beloved BC to Ottawa to look after a sick relative. Shortly after arriving I took a header down the basement stairs, with impressive results.

The stairs left three impressions across my back and bum and legs. The floor left an impression (aka serious concussion) on my head, as well as a laceration requiring staples to close. Something on the way down cut my left arm open, requiring stitches to close. Personally, I'm offended by stitches here and staples there; It's shoddy. I prefer things more matchy-matchy. But I was in a state of spotty consciousness at the time, so for once I didn't argue. My left hand was a mass of bruises and still feels that way. My left elbow was reduced to what one doctor called "gravel". And when they found me I was in a pool of blood three feet in diameter. And they found me fast.

Interlude: a $240 ambulance ride. Cut to the Emergency Department.

For whatever reason, the doctor in Emerg told me point-blank the elbow wasn't broken. She gave me an ECG and a CT scan of my head, was like, Yup, that's gonna cause problems for a goodly while, and blithely waved adieu. Five weeks later I went back, because the elbow was still painful, and a different doctor had the amazing impulse to do X-rays. When she got them back, that's when they started using the word "gravel" in reference to the state of my elbow, although she did admit that she'd never seen anybody heal like that from such a bad injury. When she showed my x-rays to the head of whatever you call bone doctors (sorry, aphasia), whom she phoned at home and apparently woke up, his exact words were "oh my GOD!" But however miraculously I heal, I still need medical help.

Well, they hooked me up with surgery, a steel plate and screws (finally screwed by a doctor, mother would be so proud), a cast which I endured for two and a half excruciating weeks and finally finally just got rid of, and umpteen really messy stitches. The scar's something like 20' long and as my pal Caddie said, it's obvious why they became doctors: they'd never make it as couturiers!

It's healing, I'm always healing, I've done nothing BUT heal since I got here (well, and stare out the window wishing I could tie my own shoes). But according to the doctors I need physiotherapy, at $75 a pop, for six weeks in order to regain full use of my arm. Leaving it and hoping for the best will guarantee a) arthritis and b) reduced strength and flexibility forever; basically, forget straightening my elbow or, say, doing up a sports bra, ever. That's where this fundraiser, and you, come in. 

A donation of $75 covers one session of physio (assuming they don't put the price up when I start on the machines, which I do once I'm healed enough). If you donate enough for one session of physio, I will write a comical and fact-free biography of you and post it on my blog, which is inching up towards 5 million views and has almost 1900 subscribers. If you donate less, I'll still like you but you might get, like, a tweet. Still, that's a 13,000 follower tweet! If you donate more, well, are you single?

Money already sunk into my well-being includes: 

• $240 for ambulance ride
• $110 approx in painkillers, prescription and non
• $85 eye examination
• $250 glasses so I can look out the window and pine more specifically
• $90 dental check-up (first in 20 years!) and god only knows how much to fix the filling of which half is missing
• $1200 to get me here (it's expensive to travel without ID)
• And yeah, NONE of that is covered by my BC health insurance.

That's a total of roughly $2500, which I really can't afford, what with the having no savings and the not working and all. And because of aforesaid head injury with resultant after-effects, I've been unable to work as a journalist since then (go ahead, haters, make your cheap jokes if you can). I keep trying and keep backsliding, but will keep trying because what else can I do? Just updated my pet-sitting website, but only looking for pets in the medium to small range until the elbow is healed. And hacking away at interviews etc until I can put together something that reads like something that reminds you of journalism.

But in the meantime, i can has halp?