I wanted to let you all know that yesterday was a life changing day for me. Through the offices of "syncronicity", I got introduced to a woman at my local hospital who saw me yesterday in her office, and approved me for the "Women Helping Women" program. This is a program (which I'd donated lots of jewelry to last year) that raises funds to provide screening and care to women who can't afford it. The $2,500.00 that I'd have had to pay for my CT scans done a couple of weeks ago...taken care of. I can have the octreotide scan tomorrow that my onc scheduled me for, and they'll pay for it. I asked her how this works going forward, and she replied "Well, I haven't spent all of their (WHW) money, but if I do, the hospital will pay after that." I'd been up until 6am yesterday getting the paperwork ready for the appointment, so I was just exhausted, but if I hadn't been so tired, I would have been dancing. It's still sinking in that I don't have to worry about medical bills or getting treatment now. I know that you all understand what a huge issue this has been for me. The prospect of waiting for 8 months until I get Medicare to do anything about this neuroendocrine cancer progression was weighing on me to the exclusion of almost anything else.
The only thing that will make me happier is when ALL Americans, not just those who, like me, get lucky with the right contact, have the health care that all humans deserve, and who won't go into bankruptcy getting it.
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There ARE happy endings sometimes....
- By nancyc
- Posted August 26, 2009 at 12:57 pm · 22 replies
- In Financial issues
- Shared with the public
22 replies
- Oldest first
- Newest first
- By cindyrae19
- Posted August 26, 2009 at 1:12 pm
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Nancy....that is fabulous news for you about the program. What a weight off your mind to not have to worry about that. And Amen to all getting health care...I just don't understand how we can sit by and let so many people go uninsured or under insured.
I am so happy for you!!
Hugs,
Cindy
- By sr2603
- Posted August 26, 2009 at 3:55 pm
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Nancy - Great news. Glad to know that there are people out there doing something for women battling advanced cancer with no insurance or finances. Its such a relief for you I am sure. NOw you can focus on getting well and forget the expense of medical bills.
- By Groovygirlcool
- Posted August 26, 2009 at 9:00 pm
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YAY NANCY!!! Well done Chum!
It's ridiculous you have to toil with such a situation in a 'first' world country!
Cancer itself is tough enough. Hopefully Obama can sought something smarter out.
........................................................................... .............
And for 'Ted' - from the lyrical words of Shona Laing ( 'Glad Im not a Kennedy'):
"And is not peace basically
A matter of human rights?
The right to live out our lives
Without fear of devastation?
The right to breathe air
As nature provided it?
The right of future generations
To a healthy existence?
Let us if we can step back from
The shadows of war and seek out
The way of peace"
Imagine being a Kennedy
Rule without remedy
To watch your family die
The world loves a sacrifice
Prophets longing for the three
Honouring the tragedy
They hunger for the crime
The privilege to take a life
Wearing the fame like a loaded gun
Tied up with a rosary
Ooh, I'm glad I'm not a Kennedy"
........................................................................... ..................
xxxGGC
- By Beachbabe
- Posted August 27, 2009 at 6:41 am
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Super duper doooooooooooooooooooo! Oh Nancy I am so very happy and relieved for you! Syncronicity? I call it Godincidence for sure...it renews my faith that there IS something bigger than us that can interject from time to time when it is really called for. You have certainly helped to fuel another soap box for me...healthcare for ALL...especially Hot Cancer Babes!
(((((hugs)))))
Colleen
- By nancyc
- Posted August 27, 2009 at 7:52 am
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Thanks for the cheers everyone. I'm headed off to the hospital in a few min to be given an inj of radioactive tagged octreotide. Then I get sprung for a few hrs to run errands, come back four hours later and have pictures taken w/ a special camera. Lather, rinse, repeat 24 hrs later. (the pictures, not another inj.) If there's any discernible uptake of the octreotide.....hey, presto!.....tumor. If something is found this time, it may be possible to remove it. The last time that I had one of these scans was after having had the liver biopsy and radiofrequency ablation of the metastatic NEC lesion in my liver. The mission was to find the primary site. The little bugger hid from us. Mayhaps this time it'll not be so shy.
There you have it....all you ever wanted to know about NEC scanning, and more. Hugs all.
- By Dreamy
- Posted August 27, 2009 at 9:32 am
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Well of course it takes women to get the job done! Its Women Helping Women. If men were involved, they would screw it all up - LOL. Nancy, I am so happy for you.... worth a happy dance....
- By lauriem
- Posted August 27, 2009 at 9:44 am
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prayers answered - go light up the world girl!. GOtta tell you that last time I had a radioactive scan my husband dug out a geiger counter and we watched me register on it - twisted sense of humor we have eh? And why do we have a geiger counter???? Wellm you have never seen my basement with husband's treasure trove of strange objects.
Good vibes your way!
- By Gentlenatured1
- Posted August 27, 2009 at 10:37 am
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So happy to read of your good news!
I was denied Medi-Cal health insurance three times---then diagnosed with advanced cancer and granted it.
Take care.
PAMELA
- By Deanie
- Posted August 27, 2009 at 11:36 am
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Nancy, so happy for this happy beginning!
Cindy, I am amazed at the lack of concern of citizens who may have insurance today but don't realize we all are vulnerable by cost of service, cost of premiums, loss of job or state of health.
GGC, enjoyed the Shona Laing words...very lyrical and wistful.
Colleen, I am a big believer that there is NO such thing as coincidence. They are divine interventions that we don't recognize.
Dreamy, a shout out for Womanistas!
Laurie, loved your response and as long as there are no bodies in the basement, your husband sounds like an interesting person.
Pamela, two positive points...your state HAS this medical coverage and now YOU can benefit from it. Both make me glad.
- By lusianagal
- Posted August 27, 2009 at 12:21 pm
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just so long as they dont interfere with what i already have and they dont make me change if i dont want to.
- By LaGata
- Posted August 27, 2009 at 1:28 pm
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lusianagal,
I have read most of the first 500 pages of HB 3200. There is nothing in there that would change anything you have unless you want it to. However, HB 3200 is not the one we'll end up with, IF we get anything at all. There are too many lies being spread and too many people that seem to want to believe those lies.
When a person's life or death is dictated by an insurance company's stockholders and their quarterly bottom line, I wonder just who COULD trust them... and why.
LaGata aka Laura
- By momx4TNBC
- Posted August 27, 2009 at 2:09 pm
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Yea Nancy....so glad you can get your scans and not have to worry about the $$$. Now hoping and will pray for good results....Hang in there! christi
- By StickiVicki
- Posted August 28, 2009 at 8:47 am
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Congratulations Nancy for both the good scan and the load taken off your mind as to how to pay it!
For all its failings (and there are many) thank God for the NHS - and there was me moaning at one time about having to pay for prescriptions (for tablets) at about £7 a time. These are now free to all those being treated for cancer and for many others as well.
I was reading through some of the stuff on another American forum where they were discussing health care reforms and I was amazed at the selfishness of so many American posters who just didn't seem to give a damn about anyone else as long as they got the best! They should be ashamed to call themselves human. In the UK people can still have private insurance if that is what they want, and some employers do provide this. Yes there are waiting lists for some operations or treatments which aren't urgent, but at least we will get them and not have to face a huge medical which could ruin their lives for years to come.
- By StickiVicki
- Posted August 28, 2009 at 8:50 am
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Oh, by the way, when I had a bone scan recently in the Nuclear Medicine department of my hospital I walked past a geiger counter and heard it crackle as I went past. I even went back past it just to check it was me - it was! Spooky.
Sorry if anyone finds the above comments about American health care offensive, but to so many of us in the rest of the world your health care system (or lack thereof) is just astonishing.
- By Groovygirlcool
- Posted August 28, 2009 at 9:07 am
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Hello Hello Hello Miss Vicki -
What's all this then? Radioactive? - You're right you know! One of the girls on this site mentioned that at a scan centre, they were asked to move as they were being 'picked up' through a wall on someone else's scan in progress!
And, I read somewhere, that contact should be avoided with young babies and children for the 24 hours after a scan - NO ONE ever told me that, and have had scans since my girls were 3 & 5 - not happy!
I am now in the habit of partaking of a can of well known cola immediately after a scan, as the phosphoric acid in it leaches calcium from the bones, with the radioactive tracer - to facilitate faster removal from the body, and hopefully lessen harmful effects (as recommended by Prof Jane Plant).
"Spooky" is right.
And I'm very happy, comparetively, with our Oz healthcare system - dodgy but decent!
xxxGGC
- By nancyc
- Posted August 28, 2009 at 10:00 am
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Hi all....
Thanks for the continuing good wishes. Don't get me started on the "debate" over health care reform. All of the times over the last 50 yrs or more whenever reform has been proposed in America, the SAME tactics from the same sources (those for whom the bottom line beats out human rights) fool the gullible into thinking that health care reform is somehow communistic or anti-American. That these scare tactics are so blatant, and so successful just stretches credulity. "Death panels" who will force euthanasia on the elderly, "rationing" care (as though rationing isn't happening as a matter of course now by insurers and for those without insurance) and "government takeover" of health care are foisted off on people to scare them into lobbying AGAINST their own self-interest. I just can't understand how people can be so uninformed as to play into the hands of companies whose profits have quadrupled in the last 7 years by victimizing policy holders!
It has been a source of terrible stress for me, especially in the last 6 months since I lost the insurance that I was paying $500./mo for, but was glad to have, to hear all of the crap playing out in the media here. I pray that the death of Ted Kennedy, who said that the passion of his life was health care reform will cause other politicians to re-think their crusade against Americans, but if what John McCain, Grassley and other Republicans have said since his death is the prevailing stance, I fear it won't. They have the nerve to say that "if only Ted were alive, he'd be able to get a consensus" when he was passionately fighting this fight for his entire 46 year Senate career! Now suddenly, they tragically can't form a consensus because he's gone. Bullshit! Pardon my Anglo-Saxon.
- By LaGata
- Posted August 28, 2009 at 11:56 am
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I am one of the few that has actually read the first 500 pages of HR 3200 and compared it to the email that gives the "low" points of that health care proposal. I absolutely guarantee there is nothing in there to do with "death panels" or any of the other clap-trap that is being spread. Matter of fact, some of the items addressed would be a wonderful help to most all of us, now.
The greed of the insurance companies allows them to drop people without recourse and that may cause them to be at risk for their lives. Let's see, what are the penalties for negligent homicide, for anyone else? But as big and powerful as the insurance companies are, they can do anything they want and the American public and even the government has to kow-tow to them?
I would much rather have government decide my options than a for-profit industry that makes all of it's decisions based on their quarterly stockholder's reports. And they're spending, the last time I heard, 1-1.5 million per day to defeat the health care bill. Why don't they use that money to pay for people's treatments? Or to work with the government to help the 48 million people with no insurace? If you ask me, their greed is unamerican!
The government is not one big scary monster that hides under a rock during the light of day to carry us away by stealth of night. It's people that work for a living, put in bids to carry out different functions that are necessary and those bids are usually competitive in the way of service vs. pricing, take care of their families and do the best they can.
Okay, quietly putting away my soapbox...
- By susanrose55
- Posted August 29, 2009 at 5:38 am
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"syncronicity"
what does this word mean?
Suasanrose55
- By Groovygirlcool
- Posted August 29, 2009 at 6:36 am
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Hi Susierose!
Can't have you perplexed! You may have heard the term "to synchronize watches" in popular culture - movies, ie. to set your watch to the same time as someone else. And from an online dictionary:
'synchronicity' (plural synchronicities)
1 (uncountable) The state of being synchronous or simultaneous.
2 (Jungian psychology) Coincidences that seem to be meaningfully related; supposedly the result of "universal forces".
xxxGGC
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