Help Peggy Get the Surgery She Needs

Imagine being in the middle of major oral surgery to reconstruct your jawbone, ready to have the implant surgery so you can have placement of permanent teeth, and having the hospital where the procedures were being done close their doors to all but emergency surgeries because of the pandemic?

My friend, Peggy, was ready for the protective wire cage to be removed from her reconstructed jawbone and then implants placed, when the pandemic hit. For the past two years she has been unable to chew her food properly and has experienced a bleeding ulcer that has not healed, stomach erosion and esophageal erosion…not to mention the anxiety of wondering what else is going to happen.

In Peggy’s own words:

“I’m very concerned about what this erosion, caused by not being able to chew properly, is doing. Primarily I'm frightened of esophageal and stomach cancer. It was bad enough when it was just the stomach ulcer but when it became a totally eroded stomach and the erosion had gone up into the esophagus, it became another thing entirely, with the potential for stomach and esophagus erosion progressing to cancer. That's what's so frightening.”

Now that the hospital is open for all surgeries, Peggy’s oral surgeon has retired, and the insurance which he accepted is no longer accepted by the hospital.

“Thankfully, the department head of College of Dentistry at the University of Florida is willing to help me, but he won't do the surgery with me hundreds of miles away recuperating. He doesn't want to risk something going wrong and not being near to help me and I fully understand and appreciate that.

“All I can see is that I need the rest of this oral surgery done and I have to come up with around $25,000 out of pocket, plus I have to stay at the hotel for two weeks to a month or more in Gainesville until the doctor clears me (the only way he'll do the two operations I still need).”

So, Peggy’s friends have gotten together, and appeals have gone out to see what we can do to help her through this crisis. We have opened this Go Fund Me page in hope that, with many modest donations, we can raise the money she needs to get her, finally, to the other side of her oral reconstruction and back to a more normal life.

As Peggy says, “We're all in this together and every now and then we can all use a bit of extra support. I have the most loving and supportive family a woman could ask for, but sometimes we just need others, too. Thank you for even reading this! Be safe and be well.”

(P.S. Peggy felt blessed to meet her new great-grandddaughter on Thanksgiving, her seventh great-grandchild.)