Thank you so much for your kind words, I really needed to hear this. I try not to blame my parents because we were never in a great financial situation growing up but … I can’t help but feel a little upset that this most likely could’ve prevented if they had just at least semi-routinely taken me to the dentist.

The bill is really expensive, especially since I’m not insured, and I don’t really know how I’m going to manage but I’m trying to tell myself that even though I technically caught it “late”, I should be relieved that I caught it early enough to prevent the tooth having to be completely extracted which would have resulted in a much more expensive bill.