Update with not-so-good news...

August 30th, 2011

When most people think of implants, they don't think of teeth.

HOWEVER.

On Friday, the 26th, I was told in no uncertain terms by Dr. Rubenstein at UW that my mouth cannot hold a lower denture. In fact, most people can't. It's a small space, it erodes the soft tissue and leads to the destruction of the jawbone.

In radiated people, me, this is called OSTEORADIONECROSIS. Bone death due to radiation.

The only solution? Implants.

It's a long and scary process and what it entails is this:

1) EXTRACTION: They'll remove the teeth I have now.

2) HEALING: Because of the radiation, healing will take about 4-5 months, but the hyperbarics I did is going to help a LOT. We already knew this and going toothless for five months was never going to be a joy (in fact, it caused me lots of tears), but okay. It was going to be a great diet and whoo hoo! Right? Sure.

3) THE PLAN: They'll build a 3-D impression and scale of my mouth and take a peek at what I have going on in there to see how I can have my teeth made for after. He's fairly certain I can hold an upper denture plate. I have a 'nice curvature of the palate'. Score.

4) IMPLANTATION: Sounds scary, right? It is. They cut open your gum line down to your jaw and stick in a plate with five titanium posts attached. It looks like this, more or less:

Healing time from that? 5-6 months. Yeah, a no-chew, no bite diet for almost a year. I went from 4 months to 9 months (on a generous estimate) real quick, folks.

5) Once that's done, they make the 'crowns' that sit on those screws and THEY look like this:

Yes, I can technically wear an upper plate during those six months I'm healing but it won't be comfortable because I'd have teeth rubbing against open sores and I still can't use them to chew. It'd be kind of useless.

When it's all said and done, uppers and lowers look like this:

NEW COST: $30,000

Approx: $2500 for the upper plate, $12,500 for the posts themselves and 12,500 for the surgery & crowns. Not to mention incidentals like oh, anesthesia.

SOOOO, this is where things stand now. The money we've raised so far will go to Dr. Rubenstein as a down payment and we start again.

Fundraising has taken on a whole new meaning, but we've come this far. Once again, thank you all SO much for your help. I couldn't have done it without you.

- Mary

Hello all you wonderful people!

July 18th, 2011

First, we’d just like to say an enormous thank you to all of you who have donated so far. As of this writing, we’ve raised over $3000 to help Mary keep her smile! Some of it has been in large amounts, but most of it has been in small contributions, a few dollars at a time - proof that a little can go a long way.

Mary started her Hyperbaric treatments this week. If you haven’t already, read her account of her first day on her blog. Along with that, she has received a revised schedule for her treatment plan that involves some new costs. In order to cover them, we need to increase the amount of money we’re hoping to raise.

Our new goal is $7000. Of that, $500 will cover the cost of using GiveForward as our host site. The remaining $6500 will break down as follows:

- $1500 for sedation

- $3750 for dentures

- $1000 for follow up appointments, to mold and fit the dentures

- $250 for transportation

We know that this can be a daunting figure. But we’re already almost halfway there.  Please, spread the word through email, Facebook, Twitter, and any other way you see fit. Even if it’s just a dollar, it’s a dollar more than we had before, and it puts Mary that much closer to being able to have a normal life once again.

Thank you all, once again. We couldn’t do any of this without you.

Day Three and we've passed the $2000 mark!

July 9th, 2011

That's 40% to our full goal and that's such an enormous acheivement :D Thank you all for your donations and support. Please spread the word via Facebook, Twitter, email, smoke signals and any other means you can think of!

Also, please mark your calendars for July 18th, when we will be encouraging donations of $18 to celebrate Mary's birthday! 

First Goal Reached!

July 8th, 2011

This is seriously amazing. What was a daunting challenge is quickly proving to be a wonderful demonstration of what can happen when a lot of people give just a little out of the goodness of their hearts :D

With all of these generous donations, our first hurdle has been reached! Mary's sedation can be paid for with the first $1300.

Thank you all so much!

Please continue to share this page with everyone you know. We met our first goal, but we still have a ways to go. Every dollar helps and is one dollar more than we had before!