Some of you may remember me from my past GoFundMe, “Keep Breathing With Angela” when I was preparing for a major surgery to help me breathe. You might also know me from the dozens of GoFundMe campaigns that I have supported over the years.

Unfortunately, my history with breathing difficulties has not been resolved and in May 2025, it came back to haunt me! Because of my small airway (I won’t go into details, but to give you perspective, the pharyngeal airway between the sinuses and the vocal cords should be about the size of a finger, or 400mm in diameter. Mine was 9.7, about the size of a coffee stirrer).

Anyway, because my body was struggling so much to breathe, especially while I was asleep, my nervous system was constantly in fight-flight, and my body was kept out of deep sleep, and I was kept alive by clenching my teeth. The reason this kept me alive is because if my muscles relaxed completely like they do in deep sleep, then my airway would close. So clenching kept me alive for decades.

But unfortunately, it also destroyed my front teeth in the process. I’ve had several teeth crack, but my two front teeth have had root canals, and one of them had to have an additional apicoectomy surgery. That was all back in the early 2000s though. Jump to spring of 2025, when I was eating a seemingly harmless goji berry, and one of my front teeth just broke off!

I am on disability now and I have been living on a very tight budget. I have Medicare with Medicaid as my secondary. Last year I was able to get the implant covered by my insurance, but there weren’t enough funds to cover the crown. So I opted to wait until 2026 so that I could get the crown without having to pay out-of-pocket for it. I thought the only cost of doing that was going to be the embarrassment of going without a front tooth for months (any of you who have seen me out in public can testify to that!), and I do have to say it has been quite a lesson in humility to be forced to let go of my concerns around how I look in front of people. And it gave me a great opportunity to go as Alfred E Newman for Halloween!

But I am ready to have my tooth back now! I could barely contain myself as 2026 started and I waited to hear from my dentist about the insurance approval to get my crown. It had been approved in 2025, but since I didn’t have money to cover it, we had to file again.

Unfortunately, though, Medicare has a new policy for 2026 and nothing that is considered “cosmetic“ is covered anymore. That means my crown has to be paid completely out-of-pocket!

You might imagine how my heart sank hearing this news and especially when his office quoted the price to me at $1667.

I know I am fortunate to have insurance, and I know there are many more people facing far greater challenges to their health than I am, with far higher medical expenses, but I reach out now to appeal to you to please help me get my tooth.

(as if going toothless didn’t humble me enough, now I have to ask for money so that I won’t be toothless anymore!)

The amount I am trying to raise covers the cost of the crown plus the fees that GoFundMe keeps.

It’s all I wanted for Christmas!

thank you so much for reading this far, I love and appreciate you all!