PART IIThe traps that come from not being free
David was a good friend from high school so I knew his background pretty well. Growing up when personal computers were a new thing, I remember spending hours at his place playing on the Commodore 64. As we got older, all that screen time saw David become a real whiz with computers—I remember when the second Terminator movie came out with ground-breaking-for-the-time special effects, he was inspired: ‘I really wish I could do that,’ and off he’d disappear for weeks at a time alone with his computer.
Out of all of us, David probably valued security the most. From an early age he expressed a desire to be a dad, and he was the first to marry after high school. Years later, an opportunity came up to move to the Gold Coast and study 3D animation for movies and special effects, but by that point life had got busy and his dream had become a hobby.
That wouldn’t have been so bad for David if he hadn’t gotten sick.
His ordered, settled life was thrown into chaos when, out of nowhere, he was struck with debilitating joint pains that would flare up intermittently, with no warning. After countless tests and no answers, it was finally discovered that David had an extremely rare autoimmune disorder. So rare, in fact, that only an experimental—and very expensive—treatment had been developed for it. It was such a toxic drug that he had to use a separate bathroom in his house to avoid poisoning his family with the chemotherapy-like by-products. ...