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So I had an appointment with the doctor that is going to be treating me with chemo, I have a PET scan on thursday. They will take another look at the lymph nodes. I will get injected with some kind of stuff that will light up my lymph nodes if they have cancer or whatever. When they take lymph nodes during the surgery, they usually try to get at least 12 for testing. When they took some from me they took 50 and only 2 tested for cancer ( he said I had alot of lymph nodes I dunno if this is a good or bad thing ) He said that it could be they were just reacting to the cancer close to them, and my lymph nodes may not even really be infected with the cancer. Reguardless of whether the lymph nodes come back positive or negative, its standard he says to go ahead and go with chemo treatment to make sure that they get anything that they may not see. I was thinking maybe I'd only have to have a few treatments and the end but this is not the case, 6 freaking damn months of chemotherepy. I am not a happy camper but wtf can I do eh? I am waiting till after the scan to ask more questions, but i am pretty damn sure all my hair will be gone after 6 months. I have a shit load of hair and I am not worried one bit about it growing back. if anything I think I'll be glad to be rid of my hair for awhile, maybe you guys can help me pick out some lovely wigs ^.^ I should start looking now for one I like I guess.
I am going to ask so I can find a place where I can go ahead and cut my hair and donate it to the locks of love program or whatever. I'll have to look online for some more info on that or maybe they'll be able to tell me there I'm sure.
After my PET scan, the doctor is going to refer me to a surgeon and I have to get what's called a port on my chest. They will place it a little above my heart on my chest, its a small disk that goes under the skin and it goes into a big vein in my chest so they won't have to always do an IV every week. It will be where my chemotherepy will go in for the 6 months. He was saying I would probably be 3 weeks on chemo, 2 weeks off, 3 weeks on for 6 months ( or maybe it was 3 weeks on, one week off, I can't remember right now. )
My stomach/abdomen is healing ok I guess. Not as fast as I want it to heal, but its coming along slowly. After it heals I am gonna try to put the cocoa butter lotion on it and hopefully reduce the scar as much as possible although I know for sure it will never go away. They put those little butterfly steristrips across it after they took out the staples. I was finally able to get a good night's rest after the staples were out, those things were fuckin' killing me.
So first week of february I should have a better idea about where I stand and more info on what is going to take place.
They did a round of layoffs at work, I wasn;t in the bunch, which I am greatful for ( although I'm sure if I had been they didn't wanna touch me with me being on medical leave of absence, I could have sued or something and said they were doing it because of my illness or some shit )
They said the center was going to close on February 7th but they might stay open till April, but thats all rumor right now, who knows what will really go on. I'm just freaking out because if we do close Feb 7th then my medical benefits will only extend till the end of february and I will be so fucked. There's some program called Cobra ( I dunno what it stands for ) but I know what it does is they allow you to keep your health benefits for a certain amount of time, but you pay a shit load of money a month to keep your benefits active till you find another employer with insurance. I pay 40$ out of every paycheck for my united healthcare benefits right now.So 80$ a month. If I have to pay through cobra, I have to pay whatever portion my employer is paying + my portion + 2%. Some people told me it will end up costing me around 400-600$ a month, since I'm on a single plan and don't have patrick signed up I think that I will have to pay around 400$ a month to keep it. There's no way some other insurance company will pick me up in the middle of chemo, they got rules and shit about preexisting conditions and crap I only know a little about. I know my family will help me pay whatever the hell I need to pay till I get my treatments done, but it stresses me out thinking about the medical costs. I hate hate hate hate that I have to put my family out to get this paid. Patrick doesn't have the insurance, and even if he did since we work at the same place, we'd be in same situation with Cobra anyways. I guess there's always medicaid but I dunno, I will have to call a bunch of places and talk with people. I will probably try to go on medicaid after I finish my chemo treatments cuz after the chemo I will have a followup every 3 months with the doctors to make sure the cancer is gone for 1 year, and then for 2 years after that they'll check me every 6 months. I think after that its once a year they will check.
Doctor is waiting for the genetics test to come back. It will tell me if I'm carrying some type of genetic gene that causes this or if its something that just happened. It will also let them know if I have kids what the chances are of it getting passed down to them. It kind of breaks my heart...if I have kids I don't want them to have to worry themselves about getting cancer. =(
My brother is waiting to get his insurance through his work, his manager is currently working on it. They never had insurance in place. I am worried sick about him to be brutally honest. He smokes a ton and if he does have colon cancer, with his smoking I am sure it can easily spread to his lungs if he has already made himself sick with smoking. It hurts me to think about it, I try not to but ugh...my mom would be so devistated.
That just made me send a text to my brother, I told him I was pleading with my life for him to stop smoking till he gets checked out because if he does have colon cancer I dont want it spreading to his lungs.
I think it would be more real to him if I was actually in el paso and he could have seen me in the hospital hooked up to an iv and being there when they told me I had cancer.
My mom already got her plane ticket she is coming out here february 13th-16th. I will be happy to see her. I do need my mommy right now.
I am going to be fine, I just gotta get through this journey. Patrick's grandma rolled her eyes at me today she said "I can't believe you. You're the one sick and you're more concerned about everyone else but you."
That's just the way it is, I can;t help but be this way. I always wanna be the one helping, I hate feeling weak.
Soon as I get all the financial stuff worked out and after my brother gets checked out I will be alot less stressed and more focused. I wish he would stop drinking so much too, but if he would just stop smoking I would be so happy. I hope some of you guys in El Paso can drop in on him and maybe give him a push in the right direction.
That's all for now.
I am going to ask so I can find a place where I can go ahead and cut my hair and donate it to the locks of love program or whatever. I'll have to look online for some more info on that or maybe they'll be able to tell me there I'm sure.
After my PET scan, the doctor is going to refer me to a surgeon and I have to get what's called a port on my chest. They will place it a little above my heart on my chest, its a small disk that goes under the skin and it goes into a big vein in my chest so they won't have to always do an IV every week. It will be where my chemotherepy will go in for the 6 months. He was saying I would probably be 3 weeks on chemo, 2 weeks off, 3 weeks on for 6 months ( or maybe it was 3 weeks on, one week off, I can't remember right now. )
My stomach/abdomen is healing ok I guess. Not as fast as I want it to heal, but its coming along slowly. After it heals I am gonna try to put the cocoa butter lotion on it and hopefully reduce the scar as much as possible although I know for sure it will never go away. They put those little butterfly steristrips across it after they took out the staples. I was finally able to get a good night's rest after the staples were out, those things were fuckin' killing me.
So first week of february I should have a better idea about where I stand and more info on what is going to take place.
They did a round of layoffs at work, I wasn;t in the bunch, which I am greatful for ( although I'm sure if I had been they didn't wanna touch me with me being on medical leave of absence, I could have sued or something and said they were doing it because of my illness or some shit )
They said the center was going to close on February 7th but they might stay open till April, but thats all rumor right now, who knows what will really go on. I'm just freaking out because if we do close Feb 7th then my medical benefits will only extend till the end of february and I will be so fucked. There's some program called Cobra ( I dunno what it stands for ) but I know what it does is they allow you to keep your health benefits for a certain amount of time, but you pay a shit load of money a month to keep your benefits active till you find another employer with insurance. I pay 40$ out of every paycheck for my united healthcare benefits right now.So 80$ a month. If I have to pay through cobra, I have to pay whatever portion my employer is paying + my portion + 2%. Some people told me it will end up costing me around 400-600$ a month, since I'm on a single plan and don't have patrick signed up I think that I will have to pay around 400$ a month to keep it. There's no way some other insurance company will pick me up in the middle of chemo, they got rules and shit about preexisting conditions and crap I only know a little about. I know my family will help me pay whatever the hell I need to pay till I get my treatments done, but it stresses me out thinking about the medical costs. I hate hate hate hate that I have to put my family out to get this paid. Patrick doesn't have the insurance, and even if he did since we work at the same place, we'd be in same situation with Cobra anyways. I guess there's always medicaid but I dunno, I will have to call a bunch of places and talk with people. I will probably try to go on medicaid after I finish my chemo treatments cuz after the chemo I will have a followup every 3 months with the doctors to make sure the cancer is gone for 1 year, and then for 2 years after that they'll check me every 6 months. I think after that its once a year they will check.
Doctor is waiting for the genetics test to come back. It will tell me if I'm carrying some type of genetic gene that causes this or if its something that just happened. It will also let them know if I have kids what the chances are of it getting passed down to them. It kind of breaks my heart...if I have kids I don't want them to have to worry themselves about getting cancer. =(
My brother is waiting to get his insurance through his work, his manager is currently working on it. They never had insurance in place. I am worried sick about him to be brutally honest. He smokes a ton and if he does have colon cancer, with his smoking I am sure it can easily spread to his lungs if he has already made himself sick with smoking. It hurts me to think about it, I try not to but ugh...my mom would be so devistated.
That just made me send a text to my brother, I told him I was pleading with my life for him to stop smoking till he gets checked out because if he does have colon cancer I dont want it spreading to his lungs.
I think it would be more real to him if I was actually in el paso and he could have seen me in the hospital hooked up to an iv and being there when they told me I had cancer.
My mom already got her plane ticket she is coming out here february 13th-16th. I will be happy to see her. I do need my mommy right now.
I am going to be fine, I just gotta get through this journey. Patrick's grandma rolled her eyes at me today she said "I can't believe you. You're the one sick and you're more concerned about everyone else but you."
That's just the way it is, I can;t help but be this way. I always wanna be the one helping, I hate feeling weak.
Soon as I get all the financial stuff worked out and after my brother gets checked out I will be alot less stressed and more focused. I wish he would stop drinking so much too, but if he would just stop smoking I would be so happy. I hope some of you guys in El Paso can drop in on him and maybe give him a push in the right direction.
That's all for now.
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From:
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You can find more information about the COBRA law at http://www.dol.gov/ebsa/faqs/faq_consumer_cobra.HTML This is a government site and won't try to sell you supplemental/alternative insurance like the the cobrainsurance.com site.
When the ex lost her hair she got some wigs, then never wore them. She was far more comfortable just wearing a variety of hats.
From:
thanks
From:
Re: thanks
From:
no subject
Second of all GOOD NEWS. My mother just recently went through the cobra shit as well as finding an alternative insurance source (she herself also had a pre-existing health issue). I will ask her some questions and see what she is on now and get back to you.
From:
well...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pet_scan
But the way it was relayed to me and I just went with is they will inject me with something that will go into my system and react with my lymph nodes, when they do the scan it shows them in high definition if there are places that react to the substance. If it does react to the nodes it will glow and basically means cancer is there. So here's to hoping I'm not glowing I guess hehehe It will also show if in any other areas lymph nodes are glowing to make sure it hasn't spread. They did a chest xray and it came back fine, but the PET scan is alot more accurate.
Thank you for checking with your mother for me, I would appreciate any information you can get!
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Re: well...
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no subject
From:
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