It's My Birthday | 2016

Hello everybody :-)

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This year has been a bit different for me in terms of birthday gifts. I mean sure, I got money and a couple of presents from friends, but that's not all.

This year, I decided to make a donation using a portion of my birthday money.

My original intention was to use the money to renew my AJ membership so I could improve my posts and videos for a while.

But this just seemed like the right thing to do.

I was about to make the purchase of a 6 month Animal Jam membership when I noticed a GoFundMe started by a man who needed a tumor removal.

Here's his story:

"Hello everyone,
I’m Michael Jones, a 24yr old, 2014 Stephen F. Austin Graduate who was excited and proud to enter the workforce and begin a new career in Marketing and Business Administration. In January of this year I went to the dentist for what I thought was just a recurrent growth on my gums since that’s what I’d been told in 2011 when I initially had it removed. Little by little, this mysterious gumball like growth had returned and overtime, started making it hard for me to eat or sleep. However, this time, the dentist suspected that is was more than a simple growth because of its size and the discomfort it was causing me and referred me to a specialist. Thank God that he was more thorough than the first and actually decided to probe deeper into the gum tissue via a biopsy to determine a cause. The findings marked the beginning of a challenging journey and an intensive medical process that I had to undergo to prevent the tumor from continuing to eat its way up into my eye. Shockingly, it had already completely destroyed my upper jaw bone leaving my teeth supported only by gum tissue and was aggressively spreading towards my sinus cavity.

On May 23rd, I underwent an 18.5 hour intensive
surgical procedure: my upper lip, nose area and under eye facial tissues were cut and peeled down to allow access to the affected area, 7 upper teeth were removed, gum tissue had to be replaced with grafted tissue from my left arm, as well as a vein from that same arm implanted in my neck to supply blood to the new tissue, a second skin graft from my thigh was done to replace the tissue taken from my arm. I was on a feeding tube for 3.5 weeks and just recently was diagnosed with Bells Palsy.

My road to full restoration is long and winding, but your contribution would make the next step in the process possible for me. I am in need of several additional procedures to restore my facial integrity and chewing ability: extensive dental reconstruction, bone grafting (to create a jaw structure), dentures (short term) and implants (long term). This is where I am asking for your help and support … the cost of this reconstruction is financially impossible for me and my family. Please donate to assist me with this final phase of my journey so that I can get my smile back and return to my career goals. Thank you and may God bless you for caring and sharing!"

I felt as if I was being called to donate, and so I did just that.

I can safely say that this made me feel infinitely better than buying a membership on a game.

Anyways, yeah it's my birthday and all, but please don't "shower me" with gifts. I appreciate your birthday wishes just as much as any present.

Jam on, shine on, and play wild.

Here's to another year of me being alive (:

Donate to Michael Jones here:

https://www.gofundme.com/MichaelJRecovery