Hey, I’m Harlee. I’m also known as Mosh, Spooky, or Barkley. I’m an artist, and I’m also disabled and currently fighting to be approved for disability benefits.
Because of a lack of safe dentists in my area covered by my medicaid insurance, I’ve been unable to get dental care for years. My last dentist appointment at the only other local dentist covered by my insurance only resulted in further damage to my teeth because of the improper care from that dentist, where they left an untreated hole in my tooth and have only continued to damage my teeth every time I have tried to seek treatment there. I also am autistic and have very severe sensory issues, and they have made me receiving dental care extremely traumatic and difficult ever since I was a child. As a child, I had to be sedated to receive dental care, but now as an adult it has been nearly impossible to find a dentist office that does sedation for adults, let alone one covered by my insurance. My only current options are putting myself in medical debt to receive specialized care as soon as possible, or wait until sometime next year to receive specialized care covered by my insurance at a university. Because of the nature of my dental health, I cannot wait. I have multiple broken and infected teeth, swollen abscesses, and impacted wisdom teeth that need to be surgically removed. If I wait over a year for dental care, I’m afraid of the infection spreading. I genuinely have no other options, or I would not be making this fundraiser.
I’m currently waiting on an appointment next week to set up financial aid with the local specialist dentist, but it will put me in a medical debt of almost $25,000. I’m setting up this fundraiser with the hope that I can raise enough money to at least periodically pay off some chunk of that cost and lessen the medical debt in any way I can, especially since the burden of the payment of the medical debt until I can get approved for disability is currently on my partner, since my partner is able to work while I cannot.
As I type this, I am crying from excruciating pain. Breathing, eating, talking, all hurts my teeth and jaw and sends pain shooting through my skull, and makes it even difficult just to think. I have gone to the ER and been given an antibiotic and medicine for the pain, but those won’t fix the problem itself, just temporarily alleviate the pain and attempt to keep the infection at bay until I can get the multiple broken, infected, and impacted teeth surgically removed under sedation.
Please, any amount helps, and even just sharing this around can help immensely. Thank you in advance to anyone who shares or donates, it means so so much to me.
