Surgery moved up to Monday

*Copied from Myspace blog. Much ranting going on! Needed to get it out...so beware!*

Well it’s been a difficult but good week. The swelling in Teds legs have gotton much worse. To the point where they are not bending too well and can be painful. So right now he is taking quite a bit of water pills. Good thing he has a nephrostomy. (tube in kidney) That way he isn’t making a hundred trips to the bathroom. They seem to be helping but not a huge difference just enough to make him more comfortable and not get worse. They think it could be from the lymph system getting clogged or compressed. Which backs up the fluid and it goes no where. Well we won’t know for sure, untill we go to the doctors and maybe try the 5FU chemo drug. Hopefully it won’t be enough to make him sick but enough to unclog his lymph system.

The doctors have suggested he take the pill form of 5FU but it’s so expensive and our insurance sucks, so we have to pay 40% of all perscriptions. Not bad for the average person but not for someone like Ted. We spend something like $2200 a year in perscriptions for him. Uggh...it’s a budget buster. We we have an application in with Roush. They are the ones who make the drug. Hopefully we will qaulify and they will help with providing this drug. Speaking of crappy insurance company. Anthem is so damn money hungry that they have a hard time coming into contracts with certain companies. Our Oncology group fought with them a little over a year ago. That would have sucked but they worked it out and it’s all good. I recently got a letter from the anesthesia group with the hospital. They no longer accept Anthem Blue Cross. I can just imagine there reason. So now I have a $360 dollar (if I pay now bill) $500 if I pay later bill. Ok..so I have a $1500 deductible, which we have met. Now, becuase the Anesthesia group is out of network, there is the out of network deductible to meet. So they don’t pay a damn dime of that anesthesia bill. And like I have a choice to pick from. They should waive the deductible...ohhh I am so pissed off and because it is Saturday, I don’t get to bitch at anyone.

Ted doesn’t quallify for Medicare for another year. Besides you have to pay for Medicare. You have to be on disablity for two years before you qualify. Ohh btw...just in case you don’t know. If you have cancer and it’s recurrant. Of course you need the work credits. You pretty much automatically qualify for Disablity benefits. I think Ted could have been on disability at least a year prior if someone told me that!!! I’m looking into medicaid, but you cannot have more then 3,000 dollars in assests (resources) for married couple. Somethings don’t qualify as assests but we are living on savings and disablity right now. They will count the savings. Someone needs to do something about this Damn healthcare system. Weather it’s Hillary or Obama...they better do it quick.

So i don’t know what I’m gonna do about the medical bills.....cause now he has to have this surgery on Monday. Of course they are gonna use anesthesia and well that cost us now. This is just so dumb. I have insurance and it doesn’t cover anesthesia. geeze! I see people on TV all the time they have fund raisers for medical bills. I have no idea how to even do something like that. Living in Virginia for only 5 years, most of our family and friends are in NY and NJ. We don’t have a lot of friends here. I think I have more friends on myspace then here. Well i’m sure all will work out in the end. It has a way of doing that. I guess you can say it’s gods blessings. I don’t know why Ted has cancer, maybe it was to save his sister. Who has had pre-cancerous polyps. She didn’t know till she was tested because of Ted’s diagnoses. So i know there was one good thing that came out of it. I’m sure there are other things but i’m not sure I really want to go there. Maybe someday it will all make sense to me and the kids.

On a really good note, my mom visited us for a week. She did lots of painting for us and helping around the house. It was so great to see her. I missed her so much. I hadn’t seen her since July 07. Hopefully it won’t be so long before the next time I see her.

Well I guess i’ve been babbling enough. I needed to get out some stuff on my mind. I know it’s not as witty as some peoples blog.....*wink you know who you are! But well it’s me. I’ll let you all know how Ted’s surgery goes on Monday. Love to all, Karen