Saturday, December 31, 2011

I received the surgery!

It took many days and over a hundred letters and I had no hope in sight.  My oncologist felt so badly for me.  Come to find out, he was good friends with the only surgeon in Nevada who does this type of surgery - the surgeon who had already turned me down, and who I was not very trusting toward. My oncologist asked his surgeon friend to do the surgery for me.  Part of this was facilitated by my cancer Patient Advocate from Paitentadvocate.org.  There is in my humble opinion, no greater group than Patient Advocate.  My advocate made hundreds of calls and helped with online research and contacted my doctors directly (with my permission), and helped facilitate what happened next.

My oncologist asked his surgeon friend to do the surgery for me for free. And his friend agreed.  Or I should say, the doctor is not worried about my non-payment for his services.  He will simply bill it, it goes unpaid, and ends up on my mounting bad credit history.

My surgery was performed on Dec. 7th.  I had a 10% chance for survival of the surgery and subsequent recovery.  I survived the surgery and was awake and aware on Dec. 10th, which was also the day I came down with an infection.  They say if the surgery doesn’t kill you, infections after the surgery will.  Due to an immense amount of prayer, I also survived the infection.  The doctors removed six inches of my esophagus including the tumor, two inches all the way around it, 20 lymph nodes and 2/3rds of my stomach with the Iver-Lewis gastrectomy/esophagectomy.  My stomach was cut open from my chest bone to the top of my pubis, my back was cut open diagonally from my right shoulder blade to my left hip, three tubes were attached for drainage of the chest at my right hip, and a J-tube stomach feeding tube is attached to the front lower portion of the stomach that is left.  But I’m alive.

I came home December 22nd in time to spend Christmas with my family even though it was from bed.  Someone so sweet put our name in for charity groceries and gifts.  We received a turkey and trimmings.  It was enough groceries for almost a week.  My son’s girlfriend came over and cooked everything.  The baby received a Fisher Price Terminal and Airplane.  It had dozens of little people in it.  He loved it.  He put the people in the plane and took it to bed with him he loved it so much.  It made me feel sad that we can’t get him things more often, but most our cash goes for gas, food and diapers.  His real dad actually sent him a gift, too – Kung Fu Panda double video box and a bunch of the McDonald’s Kung Fu Panda toys.  He loves those, too.

I’m still in a great deal of pain.  The pain meds make me too sick and dizzy to take.  So I suffer the pain as much as possible and take nausea meds to prevent puking from the pain.

I’ve begun receiving the bills from the hospitals and doctors.  So far, we are up to over $500,000.  I have a form letter I wrote before the surgery explaining my circumstances and that they will not be paid, ever.  I send it out to everyone.  But I still have one bill collector that calls me no less than 22 times a day, even with the letter of explanation and the Cease & Desist calling notice.  I can’t get them to stop, and when I pick up the phone to answer, they hang up on me.

Sorry, too tired to write more.  I’ll write again when I feel better.