Help Our Cousin Morgan Get The Surgery She Needs!

Many of you have probably seen pictures of our adorable cousin Morgan, or MoMoFresh as we like to call her. She is our little angel with the biggest appetite you could ever imagine! She loves to bake cupcakes with Jenelle, get massags from Auntie Brenda, and play in the pool with Matt. She loves it when Jake swings her around and when Uncle Ron makes her whatever kind of snack she wants (Her favorites are oranges and chocolate pudding). Well, she also has a genetic syndrome called ECTODERMAL DYSPLASIA. 

These words are from her mom, Keele:

This is a rare condition that effects 1 in 10,000 children, boy or girl. It has over 100 different types of conditions, with each child having some or all of the factors that make up E.D. In essence, E.D. can affect your hair, teeth, skin, nails and sweat glands, as well as deformities in some of the extremeties. Morgan was born with the conditions that effect her hair and teeth and nails.The care associated with E.D. is a lifelong expensive task. The symptoms Morgan has today at 4 years old, are the hair I mentioned, very sparse eyebrows that you can only see in just the right light, fragile nails, a depressed bridge to her nose, slightly sunken eyes and most importantly, only 10 baby teeth out of 20 that she’s supposed to have. Beginning in 6 months, MoMo will undergo her 3 surgical procedures.We are in the process of hoping to combine them all into 1 so that it is less traumatic, and less costly. She needs a frenectomy to seperate her top lip from her gumline so that she can have her lip grow properly in proportion to her face as it grows. She needs implants put into her lower gum line so that dentures can be created for her that can snap into the fixtures they put on her lower jaw. She also has an appt. next week about having a tonsilectomy done because she has sleep apnea.

The dental surgery’s that she needs are not covered, nor are the dental surgeons charges. Our medical insurance has denied that it’s a medical issue and therefore have denied us the surgery. The surgery for the frenectomy and the implants is what will not be covered and will have to be paid by us. Then, we have to pay for the cost of her new dentures to be made every 6months - 1yr. until her mouth stops growing when she’s around 18 or so hopefully. The cost of these dentures is anywhere from $700 - $1500 each time. While this may not seem like a lot of money to some, to us it is. Our family is on one income so that I can stay home and care for our children, a task that proved most necessary when Morgan was first born and had a lot of unexplained problems.

She is truly a bright, shining light in all of ours lives and we’ve become accustomed to her looks and cannot imagine her looking any different, let alone having teeth when she smiles! We wouldn’t change a thing about her if her doctors hadn’t told me it was necessary for her normal development. We love her exactly the way she it. If you would like to help MoMo please click the donate button. Anything would help! Thanks everyone!  

Donations of $100 of more will receive the Thriving Ink tee of their choice!