Vonda needs a jaw

My name is Vivian Holt and I am asking for your help. My sister, Vonda Mendez needs to have surgery to reconstruct her jaw — for the second time. You see, Vonda was diagnosed with mouth cancer when she was 50. Out of the blue. So she had surgery to remove a cancerous ulcer, but because one rogue squamous cell was detected she had to undergo radiation. Thirty-six times in seven weeks she was pinned under a mesh mask while her lower face received the radiation. It did its job. She is cancer free. But what she has had to live through afterwards has been unimaginable. The radiation ate away her lower jaw. Vonda’s team of specialists devised a plan to build a new jaw with the fibula from her left leg. Using a metal plate, they attached it to some existing bone that had not been destroyed. An abscess formed several months later and the infection spread, reaching the metal. Vonda was given antibiotics, off and on for a year and a half. That didn’t work. She had 30 hyperbaric chamber treatments to attack the infection. That didn’t work. Her team agreed that they need to remove everything and start over. Now she is facing another jaw reconstruction.

Vonda and her husband, Doug live in Moyock, North Carolina. She works as a scheduler for cancer patients. She loves what she does and she’s good at it. Doug is a retired Navy veteran, but continues to work full-time. Their income has been vital to meet Vonda’s medical needs these past 14 years. It’s been non-stop, because rebuilding a jaw means also rebuilding teeth. But fighting a bone infection means more than just losing those teeth. Massive scar tissue has literally fused her lower lip to her mouth. So the surgery this time around is more extensive and complicated than the first.

A friend referred Vonda and Doug to a special surgeon in Manhattan, New York who has performed the very surgery that she needs, and with great success. No more guessing. But it is going to involve so much more than what her insurance will cover. They will need to be in Manhattan during her week long hospital stay and then an extra 3 weeks for her post-op visits. A studio AirBNB in Manhattan, food, transportation to and from North Carolina and to and from the hospital while in New York, lost income for Vonda for three months and lost income for Doug for a month, plus a return trip to New York when she is able to start the process for new implants and teeth, the insurance deductibles, and the necessary medical items not covered by her insurance will run them around 45 to 50 thousand out-of-pocket.

Vonda waited almost three years last time before she had teeth again. This surgeon anticipates that her bone will strengthen and she will be ready to begin the implant process at about the 6 month mark. Great news. And she has been cleared for surgery which is scheduled October 18th.

Please help us make this possible for them. Contribute what you can. Pray if you will. And share their need with a friend. A little help from a lot of people can make this happen for my sister, Vonda Mendez.