I am raising money to help Shelly pay off her house, which she worked so hard to buy and adapt to meet her needs living with a progressive disability. With our help, she will be able to use the expense of her mortgage towards her increased care needs. Whether small or large, every donation helps Shelly live happily and healthily for as long as possible. Please give $20 or $200 or $2000! Whatever you can.

I'm writing on behalf of my dear friend, Shelly Gray. She has been living with progressive multiple sclerosis for over 25 years, adapting to the increasingly debilitating symptoms while remaining as independent as possible. She needs our help to maintain that independence—to afford to keep her home and get the care she requires, as the costs of her medical needs mount.

I met Shelly back in the summer of 1980 at Camp Longhorn, where we were campers and then counselors together. She drew me in with her wit and humor. We were always laughing; she constantly made everyone laugh. Shelly attended Barton Hills Elementary, O. Henry Junior High, and Stephen F. Austin High School, where she was the president of the drill team. She studied sociology at Wesleyan University in Connecticut, and then got a degree in law and Master's in social work at Washington University in St Louis. In 1999, the year before she graduated, she was diagnosed with Multiple Sclerosis, which almost instantly developed into Secondary Progressive Multiple Sclerosis.

Shelly practiced employment law and civil litigation in St. Louis, Kansas City, and Austin. In 2003, she began a long career in public service as an Assistant General Counsel for the State of Texas Health and Human Services Commission. Thanks in part to the good benefits and decent salary her job provided, and her own smart financial management, she bought a house in Austin where she raised her now-18 year-old son, John Scott.

Over time, she has adapted the house to her physical needs. The living room has a piano Shelly played as long as she was able, and which John Scott now plays - really well! There is a ramp to the front door, and a porch from which Shelly can see the rose bushes and a large oak tree in her front yard. There is a wheelchair lift on the back porch, which looks out over a beautiful lawn. Shelly takes great pride in her home. She keeps it clean and organized; she loves decorating for holidays and choosing and caring for the plants in her yard. It is perfect for her.

As her disease continues to progress, she has had to make concessions and compromises: she had to stop driving, she needs more and more help with tasks of daily living, and she finally had to take disability retirement from her job.

Shelly lives with severe unrelenting neuropathic pain. It started in her feet and has been moving up her legs to her calves, and now above her knees.

For the past six months, Shelly has been in the hospital, a rehab hospital, and now a skilled nursing facility healing from a severe pressure wound right where she sits and lays. She currently requires regular care--not constant monitoring, but someone to assist her to change position every two hours, and change her wound bandage once a day. She is desperate to get home as soon as she determines how she will pay for her care. She is now facing the dilemma of having to choose between keeping her home or paying for the health care she needs, which is more than health insurance and disability cover. Shelly is optimistic, but she is also honest and realistic. She is aware that she might not be able to move back home in spite of her planning and her efforts. In that case, the Go Fund Me contributions will give her flexibility and control now, and contribute to greater financial stability by paying off her mortgage, giving her more money for her care and leaving a significant legacy for her son.

One of the best things about Shelly throughout her entire life, and this whole ordeal, is her unquenchable positivity. She maintains an amazing optimism in the face of an unrelenting disease and continuing crushing disabilities. She provides a fabulous example for her son, and for all of us who take most of the things life gives us for granted.

Shelly wants to live the rest of her life in her home and not in a facility. As John Scott begins his first year at Colorado State University, she also wants him to know he will be able to return to visit her in his childhood home. To make that happen in the face of mounting health care costs, she needs to raise the funds necessary to pay off her mortgage. Please donate what you can to help Shelly meet this goal and stay in her home.

The goal for this campaign is to raise enough money to pay off Shelly's house, which is $161,000. But she would greatly appreciate any amount you can donate to pay off one of her monthly bills, like a $2,500 monthly mortgage payment, several hundred dollars per month utilities and insurance, or anything else.

Please join Shelly in her quest to live the independent life most of us take for granted. Those of you who know and love Shelly will help make this campaign successful and meaningful for her life. And for those of you who don't–please join in the effort! One of the most important things you can do is to share her story. Please help to get the word out to as many people as possible about how wonderful Shelly's spirit is. And how much we all want her life to be as good as it can be given this horrific disease. Plus, given how small this world is, you never know who will know Shelly and want to give to help her! Thank you in advance for all of your donations and help.