Hi, my name is Andrea, and I'm raising funds for my dear friend Tessa, a talented artist and devoted mother who is facing a serious and sudden health crisis. These funds will help her cover medical and living expenses and give her the stability she needs to heal and rebuild.

For those of you who don’t know her (or who might not know her well), I’ll start by saying that Tessa Dean is a rare and precious gem – a deeply intelligent, kind, open-hearted, and courageous woman who gives of herself more than anyone I know. Tessa needs your help as she embarks on a medical journey towards health and wellness that will challenge her emotionally, spiritually, and financially. A gifted artist, a loyal friend, a professional tree-climber, an aesthetician, and a single mother of a twenty-one-year-old daughter, Phylia, herself a beautiful person inside and out, much like her mother, Tessa has been met with profound and brutal obstacles over the course of her life.

At every turn, Tessa has met each challenge with dignity, grace, heart, courage, and presence, deep, deep emotional presence. Amazingly, Tessa has emerged from every challenge she has faced with a deepened understanding of her own capacities, and with optimism and hope where others facing similar roadblocks might have given into despair. Whether she has had to face heartache, the aftermath of a car accident when a drunk driver almost killed her, or other forms of suffering, Tessa has never given up the fight; nor has she lost her softness, her capacity for love, kindness, and, yes, laughter. Like a Phoenix, she rises each time, again and again, always looking forward to the next stage of her journey.

Of all of the curve balls that life has thrown her way, perhaps none has been as challenging as that which she faces presently. Tomorrow she will enter the hospital to undergo the surgical removal of a cancerous breast tumor. Worse, as if that had not presented enough of a challenge, doctors discovered another tumor in Tessa’s abdomen for which she will have to undergo yet another surgery. The hope now (and the likelihood) is that this tumor is benign. Still, Tessa will be undergoing two separate surgeries within a month of each other. Insurance will cover only a small portion of Tessa’s medical bills, not to mention the lost income from having to miss work while she is recovering.

When Tessa was hit by the uninsured drunk driver, she was left with a brain injury (from which she has fully recovered) and $70,000 in medical bills, a cost made more onerous because of her having been unable to work for a time. She has also been subjected to the devastating loss of loved ones, losses from which she was in the process of rebuilding when she was hit with the news of her breast cancer.

Tessa is not only a highly-esteemed aesthetician, but she is also a large-scale bonsai tree artist, her secondary source of income. While she is recovering climbing trees will be out of the question. Through all of her years as a single mother, Tessa has received no help, financial or otherwise. To say that she is a quite capable woman is an understatement.

While working two jobs and raising a daughter, Tessa has maintained an active lifestyle -- she loves being outdoors (and in the water), traveling, and living simply, minimally. She is a true artist, living creatively and expressing herself through sculpture and writing. She also volunteers her time to help others.

Please, then, consider donating whatever funds you can so that Tessa can afford to fight this time as she has always done when presented with a challenge. We need to have her cancer-free so that her infectious joy, her deep humanity, her grace and courage, her beauty, and her artistry can continue to brighten our worlds.