Hi, my name is Jayde. I’m 25. I’m married & have a 1 year old. In January I went into the er thinking I had a dental abscess due to my left cheek swelling. They gave me antibiotics and sent me to the dentist, the dentist took a xray, and saw something strange. They referred me to a oral/max surgeon. She did a biopsy, it came back as a glandular ontogenetic cyst, which is a super rare cyst with only 20-50 people having it recorded ever. It has a high recurrence rate & she set up a surgery to get it out. I had that surgery on April 5th, I only had to stay in the hospital for one day and was released. I healed really well. I lost 4 teeth with that surgery & developed 2 holes on the roof of my mouth, liquids I drank would come up through my nose. She said during the surgery she noticed something strange on the bone of the roof of my mouth and took a sample to test. On April 25th I found out that sample came back as a stage 4 Mucoepidermoid carcinoma of the palatal bone. Basically that means I have a cancerous tumor on the bone of the roof of my mouth. It’s a rare salivary gland cancer. I consulted with another dr that would be working with me to get it out & he gave me two options. I went with the aggressive treatment to make my quality of life better in the long run. They had to take a skin graft from my arm, cut the roof of my mouth out, replace it with the skin they took from my arm, cut from behind my ear and over my throat to get the lymph nodes out & some of the veins for the skin graft, and I had to get a feeding tube for 4 months (still have it) and a tracheostomy for 6 days. They also took another tooth. I am 2 weeks post op. As far as I can tell, everything is healing well. My Dr is happy with how I’m progressing. I still need radiation therapy. My radiation dr wants to send me to Chicago (about 2 hours away) because they have proton radiation therapy. It hones in on the specific part of your body they’re doing better & has less radiation spread. It is less likely to cause side effects and long term side effects. My insurance likely won’t approve it but they might. If they don’t, I will get regular radiation in Champaign which is an hour away. I will need to go 5 days a week, for 6 weeks. I can’t afford the gas for all the trips currently and I avoided asking for help for months but I’m getting to the point where I need it. I need to get this radiation done so I can beat this for my baby boy. He is my everything & my motivation to beat cancer. Many people have asked me to make this so they can help, I’m going to suck up my pride and do it for Jaxxon. I appreciate all the love & support I’ve received. Thank you for reading my story & thinking of me.