PARANOIA

You may recall that novelist and game designer Aaron Allston, who contributed to the 2004 PARANOIA rulebook and Gamemaster screen and wrote many classic supplements for Champions, Car Wars, and other games, suffered a serious heart attack in late March 2009 and quadruple-bypass surgery April 2. Now back in his longtime home in Round Rock, Texas, Aaron is recovering reasonably well, as he recounts in his July 11 Livejournal entry:

I've completed about fifteen sessions of cardiac rehabilitation [...] I've had mixed luck. My wind has gotten better and I've experienced general improvement. But my blood pressure is flaky. It's lower in standing position than sitting or lying, and becomes lower still when I exercise, which is not normal. I've come close to graying out on the treadmill. So I get to go through a new series of tests starting Monday — echocardiogram, thyroid, and blood count — as my puzzled cardiologist tries to sort it all out.

Like many freelance writers, Aaron has no health insurance. He faces huge medical bills. The local science fiction fan group, FACT (Fandom Association of Central Texas), is holding an Aaron Allston benefit auction Sunday, July 19, 2009 in Georgetown, Texas, northwest of Austin. Please consider donating an item for the auction or, if you prefer, making a contribution directly to the Aaron Allston Donation Fund via Paypal: gifts (at) aaronallston (dot) info.

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On the Aaron Allston info LiveJournal blog, Aaron's friends have posted information about a new PayPal account for his Donation Fund (see "Aaron Allston recovering from heart surgery" and "Aaron Allston Donation Fund"):

For anyone who would like to contribute to Aaron's medical fund via PayPal, we now have that working. The PayPal account is gifts (at) aaronallston (dot) info.

Help spread the word!

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Game designer Aaron Allston continues to recover well following his March 29th heart attack and April 2nd quadruple-bypass heart surgery (see "Aaron Allston recovering from heart surgery" on this blog, as well as wide coverage elsewhere). Today, on the LiveJournal blog his friends have set up to report his progress, they announced a fund to help with Aaron's medical bills:

Many of you have been asking what you can do to help beyond sending cards or donating blood. As you can surmise, the medical expenses for this will be tremendous. Today we were able to get a donation account set up to help Aaron with the medical bills. We are working out several options for those that are able to help. This account will only be used for Aaron's medical bills. This may include hospital and doctors bills, rehabilitation therapy, prescribed treatments and medications.

You can make a check out whenever you wish to Aaron Allston Donation Fund and mail it to his post office box. Please do not make checks out to Aaron directly. Checks made to the fund will not affect Aaron's income.

Aaron Allston
Attn: AADF
PO Box 564
Round Rock, TX 78680-0564

In about a week Wells Fargo should have all the paperwork entered into their system. At that point, if you wish, you should be able to go to any Wells Fargo location and tell them you wish to make a deposit to the Aaron Allston Donation Fund that was started in Texas, and they should be able to look up the account information and process it.

We are still in the process of getting a PayPal account set up and will let you know when that is available.

Please spread the word.

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Aaron Allston, contributor to the PARANOIA rulebook and Gamemaster Screen, and author of many supplements for Champions, D&D/AD&D, Car Wars, and other games as well as nearly two dozen novels, suffered a serious heart attack this past Sunday, March 29th, while on a flight home to Round Rock, Texas from a book promotion in Phoenix. He had quadruple-bypass heart surgery at a hospital in Dallas, Texas, on Thursday, April 2nd, and is now recovering in intensive care. Aaron is 48. His friends have set up a LiveJournal blog to provide updates on his recovery.

Via an announcement on Suvudu.com: Aaron’s family has set up a blood donation sponsorship. Anyone in the Dallas, Texas area who would like to donate blood can go to the National Blood Exchange or Carter BloodCare. Say you are donating blood for Aaron Allston, patient of Carter Blood Care in Bedford, Texas, and give his sponsor number: SPON 047786. You can donate anywhere in the Carter system throughout Texas, and they will give you a coupon to put towards Aaron's account. Mail it to his publisher, and they'll get it to his family:

Aaron Allston
c/o Del Rey Books
1745 Broadway
New York, NY 10019

Please spread the word as widely as possible. Feel free to quote from or paraphrase this post, and especially include the link to the LiveJournal with current info:

http://community.livejournal.com/allston_info/

Aaron's friends and fans on RPG.net may wish to post wishes for his recovery on this RPG.net forum thread. You can also send Aaron private messages at allston (at) AaronAllston (dot) com, on the obvious understanding he may not see them for several weeks.

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