A Member of Our Community Needs Your Help: The Susan Miller Story

Dear Readers of Thrasher's Wheat,
We bring you a special message from a friend we have never seen, but has reached out for assistance.

Please find a few moments to read over this letter, think it over and maybe do what you can to help.

Much love,
The Thrashers
ps - many, many special thanks to our dear friend K, who helped so much in finding the spirit road and traversing no hidden path.xo

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A Letter to the Community from Rustie Susan Miller

Meeting Neil Young in New York city in 1996 is something I will never forget. Neil's music has always been a huge inspiration to me, touches my heart and my soul. He is one of the very few who does not care about the fame and fortune. When I met Neil he was very laid back and so real -- nothing fake about him. I know that he cares about this world and the people in it and I love and have so much respect for him because he never once sold his soul! Neil's music has given me the strength and courage to try and hold on . . .

It is very difficult to tell my fight for life story in a paragraph, but I will try. Basically, I got into the wrong hands dentally in New York city in 2001. I had an old filling fall out and went to a dentist to get it fixed -- it should have been a simple procedure, but it wasn't. Rather than adjust the new filling, the dentist did extensive, unnecessary and incompetent work that ultimately threw my bite off and eventually changed the shape of my face. (I was numb and upside down in the dental chair so I did not know what he was doing until it was too late!) As a result of this dentist's "work," I was left with no function of mouth. I had beautiful teeth and a smile prior to this. I had to find another who would fix this botch job and the next (incompetent, unethical, swindling) dentist took thousands of dollars for temporary teeth, telling me it was the only way to fix this before putting in the permanent work. I ended up worse off than before!

My life since 2001 has been trying to find the right dentist -- and the funding -- for the full mouth reconstruction I need now. Mouth reconstruction is not free and the system offers no help. Medicaid does not pay for this kind of dental work. I need public involvement to help me to be heard and a philanthropist who wants to help save an individual's life and champion my cause. In my consultation trail, dentist to dentist, all I ever got was the run around and bogus excuses, but I had the funds to pay for the total case then. When I finally found one or two of the right ones, I had spent all of my savings on my efforts -- everything was gone and I could not afford to pay for the necessary work. I now suffer far below the poverty level when I used to be middle class. I cannot eat, chew, smile nor talk properly. I look 20 years older than I am. I cannot work until I am fully reconstructed, and well again with my function back. My suffering goes beyond what words can say here.

I am reaching out to the Thrashers Wheat community because I know we are a group who has compassion for injustice like Neil Young does. The T.W. community speaks out and that's what I need now.

For me to be well and functional again I need serious financial assistance. The cost of medical treatment -- $150,000 -- is a ball park figure from one of my doctors, Dr Alan Winter, back in 2007. The first stage of my treatment is to put my jaw back into its normal and natural position. The treatment plan is to rebuild my occlusion (bite), and that will take at least three different sets of full mouth temporary teeth. This is a lengthy and expensive process. After this first stage is complete, my face will go back to its normal shape, I will be able to speak and eat properly. The next step is bone replacement, which involves root canals and gum surgery, and then the last stage of my treatment is the permanent work of dental implants.

I have created a page on GoFundMe, please help if you can: https://www.gofundme.com/susanmiller

Also, I would be grateful if you would share my story far and wide. Maybe submit on my behalf to some of the TV magazine shows like www.thedoctorstvshow.com, or to a journalist who does human interest stories. Help me expose the corrupt New York dental profession! There are currently no overseers in New York who protect dental patients from being ripped off. Please contact the New York State legislation at www.nysenate.gov, and email Senater Brad Hoylman at hoylman@nysenate.gov, sending a message on my behalf that the laws in New York have to change to protect unsuspecting and vulnerable dental patients.

My goal is to GET WELL, to get what I need so I can try to pick up the shambled pieces of my life. But also to help prevent this from happening to others!

Thank you,

Susan Miller
susanmiller555@yahoo.com

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