An indigent Greenwood mother is hoping a doctor's kindness and the generosity of the community are enough to correct her 14-year-old daughter's misshapen jaw line.
A combination of three auto accidents has left Christine Whitehall with a deformed jaw that continues to shift. It prevents the shy teen-ager from eating her favorite foods - hamburgers and chicken - and causes her to slur her speech. She also suffers from frequent infections in her throat.
Doctors say that if left untreated, Christine's condition will continue to deteriorate, possibly affecting her sight and breathing.
"If she doesn't get her face fixed, it will start twisting, and she'll have a one-sided face," said her mother, Willye Mae Whitehall. "I don't want that to happen."
Although corrective surgery is scheduled for Dec. 8, Whitehall, 47, says she can't afford the $10,000 cost. A cancer survivor who still suffers from chronic illness, Whitehall has her purse strings tied with her own medical bills and the responsibility of caring for another daughter with kidney disease and an 84-year-old aunt debilitated by four strokes.
And, she says, there isn't a doctor in three states who trusts Mississippi Medicaid to pay for the procedure.
Now, the mother believes a rare window of opportunity has opened for her daughter. A Jackson facial surgeon has promised to repair Christine's jaw for half price, and the family set up the Christine Whitehall Medical Fund in hopes of raising the other $5,000, plus another $1,400 for anesthesiology.
Since then, a number of contributions have trickled in.
On Saturday, about 15 Leflore County High School students set up a road block in Itta Bena and raised $237. The students chipped in their time because Christine attended the school's junior high before her condition required her to be home-schooled, said Belinda McKay, a third-grade teacher.
"We have grown to just love her a lot, and it's surgery we know she has to have, so we decided to give her our time," said McKay, whose daughter, Chassidy, is Christine's friend and former classmate. "I feel like no child should suffer needlessly when they're in pain like she is."
Also, a benefit service was scheduled this morning at Greenwood Bible Fellowship Church to raise money for Christine's surgery.
But no one, Whitehall says, has given as much as Mildred Neal of Itta Bena, who organized the fund-raising effort.
"It's not how much you give. It's the spirit you give it in," said Neal, a retired Greenwood High School librarian and former Itta Bena alderman. "She doesn't have anything, so anything you give her will help."
When Neal, 74, met the Whitehalls about a year ago, they didn't have such a plan. They were a family already beset with misfortune.
In 1995, the eldest son, Richard, now 22, contracted lupus. A year later, Willye Mae Whitehall, then a diabetes patient, was diagnosed with ovarian cancer. All three of Whitehall's children have been seriously injured in at least one auto accident. During part of this period, the family was living solely on the invalid aunt's $545 disability check, Whitehall said.
It was under these conditions that Whitehall, desperate to feed her family, came to Neal's doorstep. "I was stunned because I really have never had anyone just come to my door and say they were hungry," Neal recalled. "I said, 'Well, look back there in my freezer and get what you can find.'"
"From then on, they have become my project," Neal said.
This fall, Neal helped the family search for doctors who might be able to help Christine. What they found was a lack of faith in the state's Medicaid system, she said.
"We called all those in Louisiana, Tennessee and Mississippi," she said. "Those out of state said they did not take Mississippi Medicaid, and those in state said you had to be living in their county."
Discouraged, Neal wrote to Gov. Ronnie Musgrove, who referred her to Rica Lewis-Payton, the state's Medicaid director. Neal also found Dr. George W. May, a maxillofacial surgeon from Jackson who agreed to take $5,000 off Christine's surgery.
"He said that with her being so young, he wouldn't want her to live with an impairment like that," said Whitehall.
Still, with little hope of government aid, the Whitehalls weren't sure how they could afford to take May up on his kindness. Again, Neal stepped in. She drafted a letter asking for any kind of donations, and the Whitehalls have handed it out to businesses and churches all over the county.
"I read the letter and just started crying," Whitehall said.
So far, the effort has garnered a little more than $2,730, including a $1,000 donation from one of Neal's friends from Cleveland, Ohio. The total is still less than half of what the family needs.
To help the family reach the $6,400 goal, send contributions to Christine Whitehall Medical Fund, Trustmark National Bank, 352 Park Ave., Greenwood, MS 38935.
