Imagine facing homelessness, losing your pet, and possibly your life because of surgeries, infections, and no time to heal, because somehow, you just kept working. Imagine feeling isolated in a way that made it feel impossible to ask for help, on top of feeling certain there would be no help to be had. Erin Fingal won’t ask for help, so I am asking for her.

This all began in 2017 with a neck surgery to stabilize serious damage caused by a violent marriage. It was kept minimal because she was young, with the knowledge that more surgery and more loss of mobility would be needed in the future. Even after anterior discectomy of her cervical spine, Erin kept working. In 2023, a bit overdue for the expected second neck surgery, Erin had to have TILF surgery on her lumbar spine, also due to abuse and life in general, including a fruitful but shorter time in professional ballet. This did not address the ongoing nerve damage and issues from the need to revisit her neck surgery. A severe infection/sepsis made a 4-5 month recovery over a half year of hospital stays and destroyed her ability to return to her previous line of work, but Erin kept working. Sepsis had taken hold in her body, however, and continued to rear its destructive head with an infected injury (a surprise bite from a cat, of all things) and later, a UTI. None of this includes any mention of 3 major surgeries related to septic infection and resulting complications of these issues. Erin kept working. Poor health eroded her mental health, as it tends to do. This also resulted in a hospitalization, after which, Erin simply kept working, with her nose to the grindstone every chance her failing health gave her.

The resulting mass of debt and late rent, bills, and car payments followed her like a juggernaut, shaking her life with every heavy step closer to tearing her life apart. Now she’s faced with eviction without coming up with nearly six thousand dollars, a pile of late payments for her vehicle, and very little hope that she and her sweet cat can stay in the only sanctuary she has known for years and keep working to support herself. No programs offer assistance that she qualifies for, her rent is actually low for the town she lives in, and loss of these circumstances could even be fatal if ordeals converged to further impact her health and well-being. With all that has happened (again, with no mention to any of those who love her of her need for help), I’m just grateful I am not fundraising for her funeral as it is.

Now that one of the people that loves her KNOWS of her need, I’m doing everything I can to help, but I can’t do it alone fast enough to save her home, her car, and possibly her life. Every single one of us who isn’t independently wealthy or backed by family support could find ourselves in the same or worse circumstances if chance and hardship dogpiled on us in a similar fashion. We are all just a handful of tragedies off a landslide when it boils down to it. Erin is essentially an orphan, losing her mother at 23, with very little extended family, minus a few, and a couple who have done all they can to help as well.

You’d be lucky to know Erin and even luckier to call her a friend. She’s one of the smartest and most loyal people you would ever meet, not to mention the most resilient and toughest gal imaginable. So here I am, begging for mercy for one of the people I love most. She isn’t helpless. She isn’t a quitter, and she has never stopped working every chance the health battle has given her, even when she absolutely shouldn’t be. Let’s fix this. Please. Every penny will go to putting out the raging fire going on in Erin’s life, and if we can’t save her current home, it will go to finding her somewhere else safe to be.

Empathy is a dying virtue, but I still believe people are kind and loving and that we can pull together to cause miracles, $5 at a time.

-Jessica Gray