HOME FOR A TIME

We came home so that we can rest and take a breather from all of our traveling, It has been nine months you know, but mainly we returned so that I can see my doctor and get a clean bill of health. We need it to confidently continue on with our journey. Or at least a statement that my cancer is stable. We are planning to go next to Vietnam, South Africa, Bali and Thailand, each for a month. But in order to go I need to know that my medications are working.

Within a day of my return I went to see my Oncologist. My blood test was good, my white blood cells are where they should be and my physical exam was unexceptional. All what I wanted to hear. But my cancer markers are slightly elevated. So off for a Pet Scan I shall go. My appointment is for next week, if my insurance company decides that I deserve one and approves coverage. And they may not. It will not be the first time they refuse to supply the medical procedures that I need. We, meaning me and my doctor, will fight with the insurance company by trying to prove that I need the procedure. Which they really do not care if you do or you don’t. You see, insurance companies are not in the business to help cure or to even keep alive their customers, they are in the business to deny coverage and hope that you do not live long enough to get the procedure or medical help that you need. That is how they make more money for their company and share holders, paying less per patient.

So either the insurance company will cover the Pet Scan and I get the Pet Scan done next week at the hospital where I have been getting it done all along or I will go to a different facility to have the procedure done. The hospital charges uninsured patients four times more than the place I will go to for the same procedure. Still very costly, but I have no choice, My doctor makes my medical decisions, not an insurance employee who is hired to deny every medical procedure that they can. Also, I need for my own emotional well being to know what is going on in my body. But the machines at the two different locations will not be similarly calibrated, which means that the new Pet Scan results cannot be fully compared to the last test I took. The various nuances of the tests will not be picked up on, but it will show if there is perceptible growth or new cancer locations, and it will create a base for my next tests to be compared to.

Being home is supposed to be restful, but so far it has not been. Too many things to do, too many doctors to see, too many insurance issues, and so on and so forth. And most of all, so many worries. Waiting is the hardest part for me. But wait, I will. What choice do I have? But I will continue to make my travel plans, I will continue to see my friends, I will laugh, I will have fun and I will not stop living until I can no longer take a breath. I may have cancer, but I am not gone. I will live and enjoy life for as long as I can.

Life is not merely surviving!!!!