You see this beautiful soul? This is Ashley Osborn, an awesome photographer and music business lifer with more experience than many of her peers. Ashley was recently hospitalized while touring overseas and is now facing mounting medical expenses. We want to help her get back on her feet, and we’re hoping you will too.
Here’s a little more information about her work and her current situation, courtesy of Third String Productions founder Mike Ziemer and Ashley herself:
If you know Ashley, you know she is a very strong and amazing person, but you also probably know she’s a little bit stubborn when it comes to allowing other people to help her. For the last 2 weeks, I’ve spoken to her every day while she’s been in the hospital and she’s kept high spirits and positivity about her situation. However, today, she was handed the bill for her stay and it’s finally come to the point where I’ve convinced her to allow others to help. She needs us right now. Not only does she have medical bills piling up, but her medical condition will keep her from being able to work for months. If you would like to donate and help out, that would be incredible. Ashley will also be putting up a print store if you’d like to wait and help by supporting her art as well. Below is her statement and updates about her condition.
“Now that all of my immediate family knows what’s happening. Here we go.
Never wanted to be that guy but I really need all the positive vibes in the world. I’ve been having issues with my hand and wrist for a few months. It’s a very long story but once I flew over to Europe on the 25th of October things got dramatically worse. I started tour on the 29th and the night after the first show my hand swelled up so bad it was purple and I had lost all feeling. I was in and out of various European hospitals that all diagnosed it as carpal tunnel. I couldn’t deal with the pain and I knew staying on tour meant further endangering my health so I left on the 7th and flew to the U.K. To figure shit out. I had a doctor refer me to a orthopedic specialist. I came to Leeds on Tuesday and he took one look and knew immediately that CT was not the case. He ordered an urgent ultrasound of my arm and I left feeling very positive because I thought physical therapy would be the fix.
Wednesday morning they called and I went back to Leeds for the ultrasound. They ended up finding a huge blood clot in my shoulder of which now we know has spread variously down my arm. This happened because I have a rare cervical rib which overtime caused compression around my neck / shoulder. With flying and repetitive motion for photography overtime made it worse.
They immediately brought me to the ER and I’ve been in the hospital since getting various tests.
Today I met with two vascular surgeons and they feel that starting me immediately on a treatment where they put a tube through me up to my shoulder so medicine can drop down and dissolve the clots in my arm is the best option to start. They aren’t sure how much it will help since the clot is at least a few weeks old but they believe it will clear it up enough to get feeling back into my hand / so the surgeon can get in there safely. I will be heavily medicated and out for up to six days so I kind of wanted to let everyone know what’s happening. I also need surgery to remove cervical rib.
Basically this month has been my own personal hell. I’ve been very quiet.
I have no idea what this means for my future or my career’s future. But I need all the positive vibes right now. I just want to use my hand again.
I’m going to be selling prints once I’m out of here to help me cover my medical costs so if you want to help please keep an eye out.
Ashley now owes $10,000 for her treatment, and Ziemer has setup a GoFundMe page to aide her recovery efforts. If you have money to spare, please take a moment and support this wonderful person.
