That's for extraction of his remaining teeth, and for the bare minimum of two implant posts for lower dentures.

I don't think that even includes the dentures because that's done by a separate provider.

Sadly for our area, I think $3,500 is actually fairly reasonable for this sort of treatment plan.

I'm worried about him only having two posts for the lowers and the risk of either the posts themselves breaking or, more likely his dentures breaking. Then he would have two metal stubs to chew with. If the posts somehow break or are dislodged, I'm not even sure what the hell to do.

While medical tourism sounds nice, we still can't even pay our apartment rent by ourselves as it is, let alone the cost of travel and lodging. Plus as two queer, unabashed liberals I'm honestly a little nervous about getting back into the country safely.

Not to mention neither of us have ever had a passport or experience traveling in foreign countries. (I did go to Edmonton a couple of times when I was truck driving many years ago though)

Regardless, we need to act quickly. Both the dentist and surgeon noted that the remaining bone that hadn't succumbed to erosion was *barely* enough to work with. He mentioned this would also make traditional lowers difficult to fit comfortably and well.

But we don't have $3,500 sitting around. We could try to do a gofundme but we've been living on charity for a couple of years now. I'm afraid the community might finally be tapped out.

I know lots of other people have lived just fine with plain dentures, not even implants. Or not even the luxury of dentures -- and they've survived.

But it breaks my heart because this didn't even happen because he did something wrong, it happened because he was so traumatized and depressed that he gave up caring for himself. He was punishing himself and believed he only deserved neglect.

Several times he said the same thing I said when I was in the exact same dentist's chair a couple of years ago, which is "It's my own fault. I have no one to blame but myself." But holy fuck did it hit different when I heard *him* saying that. Because it's not that simple, especially in his case.

He has fought *so* hard to recover from all of this. He hasn't been able to eat most of the foods he loves for many years.

I didn't realize he was down to only five or six teeth.

He deserves love, compassion and care. He deserves to have teeth, teeth that stay in place, even if millions of other people also deserve that same "privilege".

I'm struggling to resist hating myself because I should've cared for him better. But I also can barely care for myself, so.. I don't know what I could have done differently. We've postponed this for at least six years and I should've been more proactive.

Anyway.. that's where we're at right now. I'm very proud of him because I know this was like a nuclear bomb for his anxiety and PTSD.

I don't know what the fuck to do, and I'm starting to have a hard time seeing what I'm typing because I'm tearing up thinking about everything my partner has had to endure, and will have to endure regardless of what route we take, so imma check out for now.