Helping Out: April 5K Needs to Breathe, and She Needs Us to Help Make It Happen

Argh. Okay, I’m a screwup and didn’t realize this was as time-sensitive as it is…sigh.

If you’ve been around the Houston scene at all, odds are that you know, have heard, or have played in a band with April 5K (or “April Five Thousand,” “April 5000,” etc., or maybe even “April Brem Patrick,” whatever the heck that means). She’s been in something like a dozen bands that I’m aware of, including guitars, Alarma!, Lazer C***zz, Vivian Pikkles and The Sweethearts Über Alles, and a bunch more I’m blanking on, plus probably another dozen beyond that.

Besides the band stuff, too, she’s been one of the folks kindly giving their time to help empower young women with the Girls Rock Houston crew. Oh, and she’s just generally good people.

Of course, just because you’re good people doesn’t mean bad things won’t happen to you, and yeah, that’s what’s been happening in April’s case. She’s apparently been having chronic sinus infections for a while now, with a whole host of symptoms, including blackouts (not good), tunnel vision, and hearing loss. It’s gotten bad enough where she needs to have surgery to get her sinuses/septum fixed.

Fortunately, she’s got that surgery scheduled now, for this coming Thursday, July 18th. And yes, she and husband Jon Patrick do have insurance, thankfully, so that’s good. Even with that insurance, though, they’re still going to be hit with a $5000 bill, which is nothing to sneeze at.

So she’s asking for help from her friends out here in the Houston music community. There’s a GoFundMe page where you can go to donate however much you can to help her out with the medical bills; she’s already had to pay part of the cost up-front, but there’s still half the cost of the surgery to go as I type this.

There it is; somebody who’s been a major part of the Houston music scene — and who’s always willing to help out herself — needs help, from you and me and everybody else who can spare a couple of bucks. Do it.