Helping our Mom get Urgent Dental Care

My name is Elise Duda. I'm launching this fundraiser with my brother Joe and sister Alexis for our mom Jackie. We hope you would please consider helping Mom get the dental work she desperately needs after a life-threatening medical emergency last year almost took her life. As many of our friends and community already know, for more than ten years, our mom endured serious medical problems from Crohn's and Dysautonomia (with Postural Orthostatic Tachycardia and hypermobility). After working for 30 years, first as a secretary, then school teacher and then after struggling with her health while trying to maintain her work as a writer, she became fully disabled in 2014. Our dad, a carpet cleaner, became disabled in 2018 due to severe rheumatoid arthritis. Also, as many of you know, last May, two weeks after Joe and I graduated college, we almost lost our mother. We are so grateful she survived and is slowly but steadily making her way to recovery, independence, and better health. Her next medical hurdle is getting the critically needed dental care that will not only restore her beautiful smile but will help her remain healthy and here with us for many years. Mom always took great care to brush and floss daily, but her illnesses and medications destroyed her dental health. Sadly, Medicare doesn’t cover dental care; the costs to restore her teeth are all out of pocket. She is missing two bottom molars on each side of her mouth and one tooth in her upper left. Very old silver fillings in her back teeth have cracked and need to be repaired before they harbor bacteria that could cause another abscess. After coming up short on options with low-cost dental clinics and exhausting every possible way to get this work done, Mission of Mercy, dental schools and community colleges and clinics, a longtime friend recommended that Mom try the practice she has gone to for 20 years to see what it would cost. The dentist was excellent and gave our Mom a full breakdown of costs. She needs three crowns, two fillings to remove cracked silver fillings and replace them with white composite fillings, and a temporary tooth for the missing upper tooth (to replace with an implant much further down the road).

Finally, she'll need a partial denture for the bottom to replace the four missing molars so she can chew foods we take for granted daily. The total cost is $9,567. We will provide a detailed estimate from the dentist if anyone needs a breakdown of the costs. Friends keenly aware of our family's financial situation suggested GoFundMe. My brother and I just started jobs a few months ago, and our parents live only on disability. They have gone through tremendous financial loss in the last few years ever since not being able to afford to continue to rent the home where we grew up for 18 years and having to move us to an apartment. Our youngest sister is still in college, majoring in chemistry, with one more year to go. Feeling so bad that we have to do this but having no other way, we are finally launching this campaign. We debated about it, drug our feet, and considered other options that didn't pan out. Any donation will help, no matter how small, to chip away at the enormous cost of the dental care our Mom desperately needs to avoid future catastrophic health problems. Especially gastrointestinal crises like the one last May (acute diverticulitis with colon perforation and septic shock) that almost took her away from us forever. One of our photos is how Dad found her in the ICU after her emergency surgery.

Mom's crisis last summer temporarily stalled my brother’s and my efforts to get jobs due to addressing mom’s immediate needs, but finally, we started working last October. My brother and I are helping our parents pay down the massive debt accrued from last year when my dad had to drive 70 miles one way to Baltimore and back for weeks to see our mom in the ICU at the University of Maryland Medical Center in Baltimore. And then to visit her at the UMMC inpatient orthopedic rehabilitation hospital afterward. Additionally, Mom endured one more major surgery in December at UMMC. Gas, tires, car repairs, food and all kinds of medical-related expenses quickly piled up. My brother and I have also incurred student loans that we are just starting to repay. Treasured friends provided help along the way in the aftermath, and we are so grateful. However, the financial fallout remains significant, and we kids are still trying to dig them out as mom continues to recover.

It's been an overwhelming journey for our family. If my siblings and I could cut a $10,000 check for mom to get this dental work done, we absolutely would. No matter how difficult our family hardships along the way, our parents put food on the table, maintained the roof over our heads, and continuously supported our efforts in school and sports. We are each beginning careers that will help us down the road to assist our parents and in paying off their combined medical-related debts and repairing their 16-year-old car. Suddenly, we are faced with mom’s urgent dental care to keep her medical recovery going, and there is nothing more we can do; it is overwhelming.

Mom is committed to recovering, and her journey since last May has been excruciatingly painful. She undergoes regular physical therapy and she walks every day to heal from the two major surgeries last year. It will take about a year. She has been slowly increasing her walking since some of her gastrointestinal issues are finally healing. She goes to physical therapy twice a week and practices the exercises every day at home. She is determined to drive again, walk long distances and live a longer, healthier life to the best of her ability. One of our photos shows Mom using the scooter she always needed before all this to walk long distances. And another shows her upright and walking in a local park a few weeks ago, a major achievement! The photo with me and my sister reveals the gap in Mom's mouth from the missing upper tooth. The missing bottom teeth don't show in pictures, but are critical to her chewing and digestive health. After she gets stronger, she wants to find a part-time job with accommodations for her remaining disabilities so that she can help us as we help our parents. Our mom loves her children more than anything; she is only 59 and wants to be here for us for a long time. And we desperately want her to be with us. She wants to volunteer and give back to her community again. Restoring her dental health is critical and urgent to her ongoing recovery and avoiding future medical crises and other health problems. We sincerely hope you consider donating to help Mom fully recover and get her teeth healthy again. We thank you all for reading and supporting our efforts. If you cannot donate, please pass the link along and say a prayer for strength and endurance for our Mom as she continues her long recovery journey. We are genuinely and deeply grateful for any help and spreading the word. We will post updates and more photos when Mom begins the dental work.