Help me save my smile...

More than 40 years ago, I had a horrific car accident in Atlanta, Ga. This was long before car airbags. My face was demolished from just above my eyebrows to my chin. All the bone was broken -- rims around my eyes, cheeks and zygomatic region of my face, and the worst was my upper jaw and teeth. My upper jaw was broken into 5 pieces and my top front four teeth and bone above were destroyed. My left leg was broken in two places.

I had the best of medical care to put things back together. The final stage of about five years of restorative work was to reconstruct my upper jaw and teeth. Dr. Ronald Goldstein in Atlanta saved my smile then, and I had decades of happiness and smiles.

Now at the age of 68, I learned a year ago that the bone in my upper jaw is dissolving around the roots of my teeth. The original expiration date on Dr. Goldstein's work was 15 years. But I think taking care of my teeth and health in general helped me prolong things. The time has come to reconstruct my upper teeth again, with implants. Because my case is complicated and there's been significant bone loss, the cost of oral surgery and the restoration of my teeth is exponential. Insurance will not cover it since insurance companies consider dental implants to be "cosmetic." Never mind that being able to chew, speak and smile is important. They just don't cover this type of thing. I managed to save and pay for the first phase of my surgery in January. Then I saved up the same amount for this next round, only to find that it's more than twice what we had anticipated.

I've been reluctant to ask for help and crowd-source the cost through GoFundMe. However, here I am, asking for any help you may want to contribute to help me cover this huge expense. I will try to set this up so that the funds go directly to my account with my oral surgeon.

Please share this as widely as you can.