Diane's Road to Dental Health

Hi, my name is Diane and I am fundraising to raise money to get all of my teeth extracted and get dentures. It is important that I stop having chronic pain, abscesses, and fatigue from infections, and have the ability to eat normally. My expenses for all of this are much more than I can afford. I've been dealing with dental issues for a long time. The dental problems started a couple of years after breast cancer treatment in 2005. I lost a lot of the enamel on my teeth from chemotherapy and many of the medications I had to take since. I spent a lot of money for 15 years to keep my teeth intact but tooth decay, frequent abscesses, and bone loss in my jaw became too much to keep up with. Because I have a blood clotting disorder and a previous severe pulmonary embolism (lung blood clots) during cancer treatment, I have to take a medicine called Warfarin. This helps keep my blood from clotting and having severe health issues or death. This and other medical conditions mean that I must see an oral surgeon for all the extractions instead of doing them in my dentist's office. I started this three-step process already and had 12 upper teeth extracted 3 weeks ago, at the end of January this year. This cost me $3,300. I sold my car in order to make this happen. I have $2,000 left from the sale of the car. The second step is lower teeth extractions and one implant that will help secure the bottom denture. This step requires approximately $6,500 to $7,000. This procedure is scheduled for the end of March this year. After the extractions are completed, I will still need to get the dentures. I am waiting for the estimated cost of the dentures. I expect the probable cost to be $600-$1,500.

I tried other funding possibilities. Local free dental clinic, local dental school, and Dental Network Online. Because of the warfarin medication issues, they could not help me.

For 40 years I have been a hard worker. I worked for 30 years in healthcare and 11 years in publishing. Because of cancer treatment, being a caregiver for both parents for 6 years at the same time, and other traumatic events in my life, I was unable to continue working. I had no income or savings at this point. I was able to get disability status with Social Security for 5 years until I turned 65 when the regular Social Security began. My brother helped me a lot during this process and he was going to continue to help but he died suddenly after a medical procedure 9 years ago. I never married or had children, my parents are gone, as well as both of my siblings. I have supportive friends whose love and care have been invaluable. It is very hard for me to ask for your help. I don't take this process lightly. I am currently living on my own now and in a HUD-subsidized retirement apartment, which is awesome. The community here is great. I have begun to feel that my burdens are a bit lighter. Your financial assistance will help greatly. The above photo was taken 9 years ago. I'd like to get this smile back.