Help Justin save his teeth! (critical dental work)

Hi, my name is Justin. 

My life has been an incredible story. It's miraculous that I am even here to tell it.
In December 2014, after getting administratively discharged from the first inpatient rehab I had ever gone to, I had a fatal overdose -- my heart stopped 3 times, I was blue - a nursing student gave me CPR and saved my life. I woke up eight hours later standing in the shower, and felt like I had been hit by a truck. I went back to treatment and completed it very successfully, but the difficult road wasn't over yet.

Struggling with a lifetime of mental health issues and years of addiction, I went back to four inpatient treatments, two detoxes, and three outpatient programs before I finally began to figure out recovery. I lost my home, my family, everything I owned and most of all myself.

But this lead to a journey of being able to find myself for the first time. At this moment I have one year, eight months, seventeen days free from any substance. Three and a half years since my last overdose and last use of heroin. 

I moved half way across the country from New York to Knoxville to begin a new life - working for a year as a house manager for a disabilities agency, and finally last fall achieving my dream job: I am now a co-occurring program counselor and help other substance dependent people learn to overcome their own mental health and addiction struggles. 

But something very difficult and painful happened right before I moved down here. I had a tooth that had been infected on and off for a year, and having broken, finally needed to be extracted - no amount of novacaine would numb the site. Time slowed down as I felt the torture, every moment the molar was gripped and twisted out of my jaw. It was terrifying and traumatic. 

It was only in December of 2020 that I got dental insurance again for the first time in years. My teeth had always been prone to cavities, my dentist in New York told me, as my saliva lacks a critical enzyme that is protective of teeth in most people. But now, after several years of off and on homelessness and mental health struggles, things were getting bad. 

The dentist who took my X-rays and did my cleaning in Knoxville said that I am at a crucial time in terms of being able to try and save my teeth. I need five crowns and several fillings need to be replaced and new fillings need to be made. 

If I can get this done, I won't need to have more extractions, root canals, or lose all my teeth one at a time - something we are all afraid of someday happening. 

We do recover, and begin to heal, but some of the damage that was done when we were fighting for our life stays with us until we can repair it further. I wish that my insurance would cover more, but it won't cover any part of crowns until I have had the insurance for a full year. My dentist tells me I don't have that long, so I told him I would make a gofundme and he said however much we raised, would be put toward putting out the most urgent fires first. Any amount can help me do that, and if you can't make a donation because of the pandemic, I hope you will consider sharing this. Thank you and God bless.

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God, grant me the serenity
to accept the things I cannot change,
courage to change the things I can
and wisdom to know the difference