The day we are born is the first struggle we encounter in our lives, and every day we move forward, we come across more times we have to put effort into overcoming this world called life. When I had my son in 2006, my biggest fear was losing him and not getting a chance to see him grow up. I felt this way because of all the dangerous things a child could encounter with only one parent around to watch the child. Having been a single mother for 16 years, my biggest fear is still losing my son, but not from getting hit by a car or an accident of some sort, and now I fear him not waking up every night he goes to bed. In April of this year, my son came to me telling me that he was addicted to pills laced with fentanyl. Like any concerned mother, I began fighting for my son's safety, looking for treatment for my son's addiction, and had him into rehab that same week. After a few months of Blake being in rehab, one of his friend's mothers came to tell me that her son (a good friend of Blake's) died from the pills they were taking together before Blake went to rehab. Blake was able to attend the funeral with me, which changed our lives for the better. Blake was released from rehab on October 10th (the same day as what would have been his friend's 16th birthday), where Blake attends events around spreading the word about buying drugs. Parents never know what to expect as their children grow, and all we can do is make them aware of the dangers out there and speak to them about drugs and sex. Losing a child is never easy, but if it were not for the loss of Noah from these pills, we could have more families losing their children from a fentanyl overdose. Knowing what I know now, I do what I can for the ones that want help, and I will continue to fight getting drugs off our streets.

When I was 21 in 2006, I brought my beautiful son Blake into this world. After I had Blake, I did not think about anything but my newborn until my mom reminded me about education. My mom has been in education since before I was born and reminded me that not having an education past high school would be harder and more challenging without a college degree to get very far. Taking the information that my mom reminded me of, I started realizing that raising a child at an early age without a college education as a single parent will be a challenging time. Soon after, I began searching for a job that could accommodate my schedule as a newly single mother. After a month of searching, I was hired as a hostess at a corporate restaurant in 2007. This is where I began to work my way up from being a hostess to the expo, bookkeeper, regional trainer, waitress, and key manager. In 2013 I began looking towards perusing a degree in the medical field, After several months of trying to figure out how I would be able to manage going back to school while I was taking care of a child and working full-time with very little help, I made it to a trade school for my esthetician license. Shortly after in my career after graduation, I was rear-ended at a red light, and I was not able to return to my career from the injuries. Giving up for me was not an option, I began physical therapy and pain management. I began hosting at another restaurant in 2014. Slowly recovering from my injuries, I managed to work my way up to General Manager at this restaurant until the covid virus ended up closing us down in 2020. Once again I was out looking for another job, applying anywhere and everywhere without any luck other than a low-paying position that would cost me to work there. Enough was enough, with my son being 15, I knew I had a chance to attend college even though I was 36. Parenting is never easy, not even with both parents involved it is challenging to schedule accordingly. One thing is, I have never let being a single mother define me, break me, or give up on my son or me. Having been dealt the cards I was dealt was not an easy hand. I had to work hard to support Blake and me, and not let keeping up with Jones bring me down.

I am pursuing a career path in health science. The career path I have chosen will give me a wide range of fields I can choose from and I am choosing to get my Ph.D. in cosmetic surgery. This path will help me help others regain self-confidence by helping burn victims, military personnel who have been blown up in war, and many other injuries that need reconstructive surgery due to combat. I come from a military background and have had several friends in the military who deserve to be whole again. I believe that those who have fought for our country deserve to get the best medical treatment they can possibly get after risking their lives for our own. Having seen friends come back from war over the years, most of them had a lot of psychological effects and were put on medications but the ones who had amputees, burns, and missing chunks of their legs or parts of their bodies were just left to deal with it. Yes, they got bandaged up and treated but not where one can become slightly if not fully whole again. The ones that put their lives on the line for us deserve to have better medical treatment than what they receive. We see all these people with money daily going and getting unnecessary cosmetic surgery out of insecurities, boredom, and having to have what everyone else has. Yet do we think about the ones who risked their lives and have to be in a wheelchair for the rest of their lives because they can't get the cosmetic surgery they deserve or the ones who were burned so badly that they can hardly recognize themselves? Most people don't even consider the ones who put their lives on the line to save our own and I think they deserve more than a pat on the back for what they do for our country. We as a whole need to start recognizing what our military has done for our country and give them what any human being deserves when they put their life on the line for others, especially the right healthcare treatment regardless of how much it costs to help one become more whole as a person after experiencing the traumatic incident that they went to. When I complete my schooling, my plan is to open up a non-profit organization that helps wounded warriors who need cosmetic surgery to help them on their journey back to civilian life.