Need California residency or a nice insulin overdose!

First of all:  thank you Allie.  I’m saving up again for more diapers and your gift helps a lot.

CONTACTS FOR SURGICAL HELP:  I have contacted many web sites and the few esophageal specialty hospitals that are available.  The results were very depressing.  Most of the web sites referred to other web sites I had already contacted.  The adult-type Make-a-Wish places will honor a useless wish like meeting a celebrity or going on a vacation, but will not pay for medical expenses/transportation/lodging.  The only even mildly good answer I received - closed me out due to my state residency, and that was UCLA Esophageal Cancer Center - my first choice for the surgery.  Here is what they said directly to me:

RESPONSE FROM UCLA ESOPHAGEAL CENTER:  ["I am really sorry to hear about your predicament—its sounds really dire.  If you lived in California, I would simply tell you to apply for medi-cal, and that would be that, you could get it and have surgery at UCLA.  However, since you don’t live here you can’t apply for it.  I’m sure that Nevada has a similar program, you could look into it.  They most likely would not approve for you to come to CA for the surgery however.  You might be able to bank on the fact that there is no one there who can perform the surgery safely, and see if they’d cover it.  I know it’s a process to obtain medi-cal through the state (NV)—if you decide to try this route, I would push your oncologist to continue to give you chemotherapy (even low dose) so that you are at least getting some type of treatment while the paperwork is being processed.

I’m sorry I don’t have any further information for you.  We do frequently get patients from NV but we don’t have any programs or options for folks without insurance, unfortunately.

One other thing just popped into my mind, the LA county hospital (affiliated with USC) does take care of indigent people- so you might look into that.  I’m not sure if they take out of state folks or not but you could check into it."]

MY RESPONSE TO UCLA:  First off, I'll cover the suggestions UCLA made:

(1)  I already know that no one here can do or wants to do this surgery on me, nor would I want them to, due to their lack of experience, however, that does not mean Nevada will pay for me to go out of state.  Nevada already said they will not.  UCLA even states how difficult it is to obtain medi-cal in Nevada.

(2)  And I do not want to get the surgery at LA County Hospital.  It's imperative that the surgery take place at the specialty centers with the trained-for-this-type-of-surgery doctors and rehab assistants.  The survival rate for the surgery is very low when it is not completed by properly specialized trained staff.  And, as UCLA stated, they are not even sure if LA County handles out of state people - I can safely say they do not.

My only other option is to scam a residency.  From what UCLA tells me and responses from all the letters I sent out, California residency is actually my only option.  I know it's not entirely a legal thing to do, but I'm dying - so sue me or jail me, who cares.  Even with the surgery, even with a couple more years added to my life, I’d die before they could collect, sue me, or send me to jail.  And I’ll make sure my husband knows nothing at all about it, so the law cannot implicate him.  I’ll just tell him I was advised to go to California and I needed a local address to prove to the doctors I had a place close by for recovery.  The hard part will be getting residency for the surgery and applying for California medi-cal.  I am sure I can use my husband’s aunt’s address in California, but I will have to drive back and forth during the application process, probably several times a month for interviews and health contacts.  I’m not sure if we can manage the gas and lodging costs for a application process.  I’d ask to stay with my husband’s aunt to avoid motel costs, but they have a small two bedroom house with seven people already.  They’d say yes, as family, but I feel sick all the time from the cancer and I fear a crowded house would make me more ill, plus I’d be bringing my husband and child along, which makes the crowding worse.  So, we’d need to manage a cheap motel for overnight a couple times a month.  I know this would get me the surgery, but it doesn’t cover everything.  I also need someone to come to the hospital daily for two weeks just after the surgery to help with beating my back, etc., to prevent pneumonia.  Then, I’d have to manage home care in Nevada myself, afterwards, which is quite a bit of care.  But I’d make the home care work somehow with friends – maybe some of you who live close by and would volunteer to help? 

Who am I fooling here?  This is so hopeless.  Even if I scammed the residency, I can’t pay for motels and gas to get the application work completed on it.  Like UCLA said – no insurance, no help.  Out-of-state – no help?  Even in-state, I cannot get help.  Isn’t that sad?  I’m nobody and not worth helping because I have no insurance.  Plus I’d hate to go through all the trouble of applying in California only to have to be denied for some reason like the hundreds of times they denied me here.  But I’d be willing to try it if I could manage a motel and gas.  However – that’s as big a dream as not having the cancer in the first place. 

Why go on?  Why cause myself and my family further depression and suffering when there is no hope on the horizon?  I know I am not going to let my husband watch me deteriorate away with this cancer.  My oncologists have already described to me how the end process will be.  It begins with a light cough (which I already have every time I lay down).  The throat slowly closes again until I cannot eat, and a stomach/feeding tube has to be surgically installed.  The feeding tube involves someone setting me up with overnight feeding IVs to keep me going.  The cough becomes worse as the tumor invades the lung wall, and I have to be placed on oxygen.  As my throat closes more, I am subjected to stints and other surgical inserts to open the throat for breathing.  My voice will also leave when the tumor grows further.  I slowly starve and die, while my family watches.  And all of this will occur within 6-8 months, maybe sooner, maybe a little longer.  What would you do if this were you?  Luckily for me, I am diabetic and have a huge stockpile of insulin.  Going out will be relatively easy with just a diabetic insulin overdose followed by a coma I never wake up from.  I’ll be place in a county hospice, but it won’t matter because I’ll already be gone from this world.  If I cannot manage the residency change and surgery recovery, then I guess I have just a couple months until this downhill skid on my health begins and ends.