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Parents Jim Sago and Judy (Ashbrook) Sago
OUR SON - SECOND TIME CANCER WARRIOR, SURVIVOR OF LEUKEMIA AND ORAL CANCER NEEDS MORE TREATMENT - DENTAL REPAIRS - Damage caused by radiation treatments - Not covered by insurance.
Parents love for a son is forever. Please help with the needed treatment cost for our son, Alan Sago, who is a loving Husband and Father. His battle with cancer has been and continues to be very difficult for his family. Consider prayers for him and his truly supportive caring wife Melody and son Michael. Melody has been a true hero and very strong support in his trip toward recovery.
Out of Pocket cost to improve his ability to eat and speak more clearly is estimated to approach $20,000.00
Our prayer is that he can get the damage caused by the radiation treatments repaired and be able to speak and eat more normally and maintain his few remaining teeth.
Alan has always been a non-smoker and the cause of the oral cancer is non-conclusive. He is a survivor of chronic myelogenous leukemia (CML), a cancer of the blood, since 2001 and the oral second cancer discovered at the end of 2013. The leukemia is kept in remission with an oral drug. In January of 2014 he faced surgery for oral cancer of the throat and tongue and the tumor was large and deep. It required extensive and complicated surgery. Fortunately he had an excellent surgical team that removed the cancer including a large part of his tongue and a large part of his throat. His jaw was split open and spread apart to allow access to remove the tumor. They were able to use much of the muscle, circulatory and nerve system from his left forearm to reconstruct and rebuild a replacement for parts of what was removed. The deep arm wound had to be covered with skin from his thigh. Several months followed with feeding tubes and a tracheotomy. He was unable to eat by mouth for over a year. He is also missing 4 teeth and jaw bone on his lower right side and a large amount of tissue is missing from his inner cheek and throat area including about a third of his tongue. A long titanium plate holds his jaw together where his jaw was split open to have access to remove the tumor. This surgery was followed by 60 targeted radiation treatments to the mouth and throat. The radiation seriously damaged the mouth including the teeth and gums and he now needs significant mouth (dental) repairs to save his remaining teeth.
His stomach feeding tube has been removed and he can drink liquids (mostly Ensure) some very soft thicker liquids and can talk. The dental treatment should allow him to improve his speech and should increase the foods that he can manage to eat in addition to keeping the teeth that are left and with multiple and frequent professional visits he can look forward to resuming as much normalcy as possible.
Unfortunately insurance will NOT cover the cost of the mouth treatment as it is classified as dental. Please consider a donation to help cover the cost, as previous medical has already been very costly. With your help in this crowd funding endeavor we hope to help him with dental and other out of pocket medical expenses not covered by insurance.
With most sincere appreciation for whatever you can do.
Parents - Jim (77 yrs.) and Judy (73 yrs.) Sago, Retired
Married Judy Ashbrook from Cunningham, KY 1964
OUR SON - SECOND TIME CANCER WARRIOR, SURVIVOR OF LEUKEMIA AND ORAL CANCER NEEDS MORE TREATMENT - DENTAL REPAIRS - Damage caused by radiation treatments - Not covered by insurance.
Parents love for a son is forever. Please help with the needed treatment cost for our son, Alan Sago, who is a loving Husband and Father. His battle with cancer has been and continues to be very difficult for his family. Consider prayers for him and his truly supportive caring wife Melody and son Michael. Melody has been a true hero and very strong support in his trip toward recovery.
Out of Pocket cost to improve his ability to eat and speak more clearly is estimated to approach $20,000.00
Our prayer is that he can get the damage caused by the radiation treatments repaired and be able to speak and eat more normally and maintain his few remaining teeth.
Alan has always been a non-smoker and the cause of the oral cancer is non-conclusive. He is a survivor of chronic myelogenous leukemia (CML), a cancer of the blood, since 2001 and the oral second cancer discovered at the end of 2013. The leukemia is kept in remission with an oral drug. In January of 2014 he faced surgery for oral cancer of the throat and tongue and the tumor was large and deep. It required extensive and complicated surgery. Fortunately he had an excellent surgical team that removed the cancer including a large part of his tongue and a large part of his throat. His jaw was split open and spread apart to allow access to remove the tumor. They were able to use much of the muscle, circulatory and nerve system from his left forearm to reconstruct and rebuild a replacement for parts of what was removed. The deep arm wound had to be covered with skin from his thigh. Several months followed with feeding tubes and a tracheotomy. He was unable to eat by mouth for over a year. He is also missing 4 teeth and jaw bone on his lower right side and a large amount of tissue is missing from his inner cheek and throat area including about a third of his tongue. A long titanium plate holds his jaw together where his jaw was split open to have access to remove the tumor. This surgery was followed by 60 targeted radiation treatments to the mouth and throat. The radiation seriously damaged the mouth including the teeth and gums and he now needs significant mouth (dental) repairs to save his remaining teeth.
His stomach feeding tube has been removed and he can drink liquids (mostly Ensure) some very soft thicker liquids and can talk. The dental treatment should allow him to improve his speech and should increase the foods that he can manage to eat in addition to keeping the teeth that are left and with multiple and frequent professional visits he can look forward to resuming as much normalcy as possible.
Unfortunately insurance will NOT cover the cost of the mouth treatment as it is classified as dental. Please consider a donation to help cover the cost, as previous medical has already been very costly. With your help in this crowd funding endeavor we hope to help him with dental and other out of pocket medical expenses not covered by insurance.
With most sincere appreciation for whatever you can do.
Parents - Jim (77 yrs.) and Judy (73 yrs.) Sago, Retired
Married Judy Ashbrook from Cunningham, KY 1964
Organizer and beneficiary
James Alan Sago
Beneficiary