Many of you may already know my granddaughter Lyric — but if you don’t, I pray you take a moment to hear her story. Lyric was diagnosed with Relapsing Polychondritis at just 17 years old, and by April of 2017, after only 2 months of her diagnosis, her airway collapsed 100% in her sleep and she needed an emergency tracheostomy just to stay alive. We were told she would only need 4 to 5 surgeries before they removed her trach, but that was proven to be false because Lyric has undergone 49 surgeries so far.

Now — after almost nine years — Lyric is finally being given the chance to have her trach removed and breathe through her face again. But before they can begin the surgical process of major airway reconstruction, there is one surgery that absolutely has to happen first: her nose. Relapsing Polychondritis destroyed all of the cartilage in her nose — leaving her with saddle nose deformity and collapse of both the internal and external nasal valves. In simple terms: her nose cannot move air on its own. Once the trach is gone, her nose becomes her airway again — and right now her nose is not capable of doing that. They have to rebuild her nose from scratch so she can breathe normally.

Lyric has been through the roughest of the roughest — including a 23-hour surgery and even open-heart surgery — yet she has never stopped fighting. She has carried all of this with strength, with grace, and with faith that she deserves a life beyond survival.

This surgery is both corrective and medically necessary. We are asking for help raising $20,000 so she can finally take this critical step toward freedom after everything she has suffered. Any contribution — big or small — brings her closer to finally breathing normally again, and we thank you from the bottom of our hearts.