Many people may not know, but Ella has had a long history of medical issues that have impacted her severely. She began experiencing critical side effects from PANDAS when she was 7, and it's been a steady stream of expenses related to her health and well-being since then. In 2021 her mental health hit a crisis, and she was briefly admitted to a psychiatric hospital and then did an intensive outpatient program for several months after. Because of her depression, she neglected her oral hygiene and has expensive dental work needed, which we keep putting off because of the cost, which means everything just keeps getting worse.

I've been doing my best over the years to juggle the expenses on my own, trying to manage our budget in an increasingly expensive economy. Rents are skyrocketing, medical and dental bills are piling up, I've taken on debt trying to pay for everything, my credit cards are maxed, and I've run out of options to pay for it all. Now to top it all off, my car has died and needs expensive repairs to get running again.

The estimate for the dental work alone is around $9000. I have dental insurance but it caps at $2000 a year so it depletes really quickly with just a root canal. I need a minimum of $1000 just to get the car operational enough to see what else needs to be done. At a certain point I need to decide if it's worth fixing or if I try to get something else to get us through. The problem with "getting us through" is that that's the philosophy I've been using for over 10 years now and I just keep getting further behind.

I wish I had other ideas how to handle all of this, but I am at a loss how to recover without help. I am not good at asking for help, but it's time to swallow my pride. Anything you can do to help us is so appreciated and if you can share to others, that's appreciated too.