Dear friends and family,

I need your help. Over the past ten years or so I have had many mouth and teeth problems that have gotten progressively worse over the years for a multitude of reasons. Raising four kids by myself, lack of self care, lack of dental insurance at times and of course the overwhelming cost of dental care. I slowly had to have teeth pulled because I couldn't afford to spend thousands of dollars on getting them fixed etc. For the last few years I have not been able to chew and ended up with only my front teeth left. Each tooth loss I have had to learn how to chew in different spots of my mouth, learn how to talk and enunciate my words without a lisp or spitting on people and then learn how to smile smaller or not at all due to the shame and embarrassment around it all. It is the stuff that nightmares are made of- you know the ones where you dream your teeth crumble and you are spitting out all your teeth? Well, that has been my reality.

Over the past few months, my front teeth have become loose, and none are worth saving. I can't even bite. I am in constant pain and as many of you know, I have had recurring shingles since my twenties, which is triggered by stress and body trauma. So for the last few months I constantly have shingles on top of all of the mouth pain. I have been on a soft mushy diet and I have lost fifteen pounds. I am in pain. I have been so depressed and overwhelmed it has been crippling. This affects my ability to work and live my life, to show up for other people in the ways that I would like to, and now it is greatly impacting my health. I cannot live like this anymore, and I also can't afford to do this by myself. Ad I ned to get this done before I have more bone loss in my mouth which will make it even more expensive.

I have found a solution to fix my whole mouth, I have a plan and need help doing it. And I need to do it as soon as possible. I have managed to scrape a little bit of money together but I still need quite a lot to make this happen. I have all the love, care, and support I need to get this done, just not all the money. I know I have a wide network of people I love who also love me back, so I am humbly and gratefully asking for help with this.

I want my big ol cheesy smile back. I want to be able to fully express my joy and happiness again and more than anything, I need to be able to eat and get my health back.

Any little bit will help. This is a lofty goal, but if a lot of people can help just a little we can do this. I am shooting for the stars and will happy with the moon or anything else. In return I promise to flash the biggest smiles everywhere always and shine brighter than ever.

Thank you in advance. I love you all and appreciate absolute every one of you.

UPDATE: Thank you so much for your generosity in SO many ways!! I am receiving an outpouring of love and support not just financially but I'm getting information and guidance about things I didn't know were options. It turns out I'm not going to need quite this much money. I am not sure of the exact numbers yet but I'll update soon about what I need, what it is for/where it is going and how close I am. It is definitely a few thousand less so that’s good. When I first posted this it was based off what I had learned so far- and I was in a lot of pain and it hard to research things and get information when in that space while trying to work etc. But it is coming together, and I am so excited and grateful. I’ll update more as I have more finite details! Long story short I’ll be travelling for this and taking a caretaker with me. I’m still hammering out all that but it’s coming sooner than later!