Help Sam Get Urgent Dental Care

Hi! My name is Jesse, I'm a trans illustrator and writer living in Chicago, IL with my boyfriend, Sam. (I'm not the cat in the photo, that's Murphy.)

Over the last 6wks Sam has had increasing intermittent pain in his mouth and jaw and now needs a tooth extraction. His work does not offer dental insurance and we do not have any savings. So far we have been unable to get an appointment with one of the low-income dental clinics in Chicago. At this point, he is spending most of his time off work cycling between holding an ice pack to his face and doing warm water rinses. It's hard for him to do much else besides try to cope with the pain while he tries to find an affordable appointment to actually fix the underlying problem.

This is only the latest problem in about two months of constant illness for both of us, and we cannot afford to treat it like the emergency that it is. We are still looking for the cheapest possible option for dental care, but this is not the first time this has happened, and $5k is the estimate he has been given in the past by dental clinics that do not offer low-income options. I would really like to see my boyfriend not in constant pain, and for us to get back to our lives.

Anything we do not use for dental procedures will wind up contributing to our savings so that we can move to Philadelphia later this year.

Thank you.