Surviving Cancer, It is not what you think.

     It is now six and a half years later and I must say it has been a truly interesting ride. I have left all of the original postings as is, spelling errors, grammatical mistakes, political rants, so that you may see the changes in attitude and perspective.

     After the stem cell transplant and being made for the most part whole, the journey to see if you go in to remission for five years,"cured" or if you relapse. I was told if I did relapse, it would be in the first 18 months. This period starts off with scans and tests every three months for 2 years then drops to six months then to once a year for the five year period. This protocol is tailored to the individual and type of cancer they had. In April of 2013 I past the 5 year mark.
How is being cured? It is a mixture of serendipitous accidents and cold hard truths. I will back up here a bit and sum up what happened beginning to end. I spent a year being misdiagnosed with everything from intestinal flu, diverticulitis,
gall bladder problems, appendicitis, had surgery for the gall bladder and appendix, and the last was Mesenteric Adonitis . I had become a fixture at the local emergency room , so much so I knew everyone there by name. You know you have been to many times when you know everyone. The last trip I took to the E.R. I decided I was not leaving until somebody found something. I was in my room at the hospital when the surgeon came by and asked me why I was there, I told him what the problem was and at that time my room mate asked, doesn't the left side of his neck look bigger than the right?  He started to palpate my neck and said, " I want to do a biopsy of that area". What he found was a necrotic Lymph node, of which there was so little left he didn't think the pathologist would be able to make a determination. He did determine I had Lymphoma, not what class or type, just that it was not Hodgkins. My doctors at the time were in the room when the surgeon came in, their response was lets not go there yet, and the surgeon just lost his mind, in a most unprofessional manner. He asked what is wrong with you two! He has cancer and now you want to debate the diagnosis! He said some other unflattering things, spewed the odd epitaph, and left. I no longer have those doctors and good riddance to them. Now things started to happen.
     I was diagnosed on 3, January, 2006. On 6, January, 2006 I went to a guy he knew. Dr. Holt, after a bone marrow biopsy stated I had stage 3 Large B Cell Lymphoma. He and his clinic worked for a while, but when everyone thought the majority of my tumors had receded enough to to go towards cured, I crashed. I ended up in the E.R. at Dosher Memorial Hospital, because I was in enough pain I could hardly move. The E.R. Doc. Said," we don't do cancer patients here". So. my room mate slash caregiver says I will take him to Grand Strand in Myrtle Beach. He said well let me see what the surgeons say. I had been there for six hours or more by this time, and the E.R. Nurse popped in and said you have been here a really long time and you are getting irritated and antsy so I am going to give you a little sedative to help. Once I woke up from the comma I saw I had been opened up from Sternum to Pubis. The first this I said to myself was well this is different.  I later found out I had a tumor attached to my colon at the cecal valve junction that had died. Now, when the scans are done to find tumors and such, a radio active tracer is used; the tumors will take it up and "glow" on the scan. This one didn't because it had no blood flow, the appearance of it getting smaller was from the fact as it died it stopped taking up the tracer. What was removed from my abdomen was a 14X19 CM tumor, two and half feet of gangrene colon, the cecal valve, and half the ileum. My new plumbing out right sucks. The surgeons told me if, my room mate slash care giver had tried to take me any where, I would have died on the way.  Back to Dr. Holt after a 6 week recovery period.
     He decided that since that problem came about, he would send me to a guy at Duke, the head of Oncology also named Dr. Holt. He and his crew tested and checked and decided I needed to go see a guy he new, Dr. Nelson Chao, Head of the Duke Adult Bone Marrow Transplant Center. I went to see him. On the first visit, I saw a Fellow, studying there and he had a tall thin raven haired P.A. with him. As soon as he spoke in his heavy Ukrainian accent, I just fell on the floor laughing. He said lets get all the Rocky and Bullwinkle jokes out of the way. He said he was from Kentucky, but I digress. After tests, and such I saw the great OZ himself. The first thing he said is you should have died six months ago, but you are still here so lets see what we can do. I was told with out a Stem Cell Transplant, (STC), I had a 20 percent chance of survival, with it, a good 60. I responded, that beats Vegas odds so lets do it. After his Bone Marrow Biopsy and tests I was typed as having stage 4 aggressive diffuse Large B Cell Lymphoma. I had involvement in my abdomen, liver and lungs. I still have nodes in my right lung, and lesions in my liver, but they have been inactive for sometime. for the rest of the cancer journey read the other posts.
     Before you begin those, I will give you the run down on where I am currently at. The harsh chemo. I was treated with has left me with Neuropathies in my extremities, a severely diminished short term memory, learning disabilities, constant fatigue, PTSD, arthritic joints, poor bowel control, vertigo, testicular atrophy that I have to take large amounts of testosterone for, I am now a bilateral aphake due to large amounts of prednisone I took I developed systemic cataracts,a slow form of kidney failure, and Cardiac Aphib. I can no longer do the work I used to do, so, I now live on disability while I try to find something I can do to supplement my disability or make enough money from to live on.
Beginning to end, I have had, over 30 blood tests for any and everything you could imagine, three BMBs, 22 Cat and Pet scans, enumerable Xrays, three Lymphectomy/ Biopsies, two port insertions, one Double Lumen Hickman, five surgeries, one lung collapsed twice, and the chemo is making my teeth rot from the inside out.  Such is the cured side of cancer. Some of the items in the body of the blog, I relate second hand as I have no memory of them. Dr. Dementia,(her personalized license plate), told me it is best that I didn't remember.
     Cost. Treatment, 33,000 dollars a month for 14 months, STC, unknown as no one would tell me anything other than it is paid out of a global fund. That tells me it cost a nearly infinite amount of money.  80,000 dollars for surgeries. Six months in I lost my job and insurance, had to rely on medicaid, donations of therapy drugs from the Pharma companies, and the kindness of strangers, until Medicare started which was nearly nine months after applying. since I have been "cured" the copays for the drugs I take run 200 dollars a month until I fall into the medicare gap and then jumps up to almost 350 dollars a month. there is one drug I don't take for the simple reason that the copay for it is 500 dollars a month, in the gap it is 1,052 dollars a month.
     Emotional cost. You learn quickly who your friends are and aren't. Everyone is so concerned when you are diagnosed. How will you get through this? How long will it take you be normal again,( you never will). Are you going to die and all of the stories about people that had such and such and died. I a little hint for the general populace, don't do that shit, it is not helpful. Once they find that you can be come a burden and you are not going to come out if and be fine in a few weeks, they disappear like an ethereal mist, then you find who your true friends are.   After you have gotten through the responses to being diagnosed, have gone through, the disbelief, the grieving, and the being pissed off. It comes down to the fight and it is a fight. Chemo, surgeries, and scans for me, others have radiation treatments to deal with. IT makes you sick most loose their hair and I don't mean just the hair on your head, every hair you ever had on your body. I admit I kind of liked the hairless part except for the head hair. I didn't have to shave for a good year, not having hairy legs arms and chest were nice, kind of sexy even. You have to become hyper vigilant about infections of any kind. You lose your immune system. You can't eat at a restaurant, you can't eat fruit that can not be washed and peeled, can't garden, can't pet your animals without washing your hands, they can't give you kisses or sleep with you. If you develop a fever you go immediately to the hospital, as you can go from having a slight fever to dead in a short time frame. I had a finger prick blood sample taken that became infected and became so severe I almost lost that finger. It was a good finger too. You become almost unable to function the chemo takes such a toll on your body. There were a few times I was told you should not do this and drive yourself around or operate dangerous equipment. I learned that the hard trying to drive home and nearly killing myself and untold numbers of others in the process. I stopped at a little store with concrete filled pipes out front. It they weren't there I would have stopped at Bob's counter. To give me something to do I started fencing in my small back yard,(32'X72'). I had my circular saw out and cutting the first board the saw stopped and I went through the whole routine of figuring out why it stopped before I realized I had cut the cord, I did that twice. It took me 14 months to build the fence. I was so fatigued I could work slowly for 2 hours and had to stop. The next day I would sleep almost all day. You largely can't participate in the world, and your world becomes awfully small.Not being able to work was hard for me. I had worked 10 hours a day, drove 2 hours a day to and from and made good money, now I could barely walk to the stop sign 2 houses down from mine. If you don't work for a good company with good management and benefits, you will lose pretty much everything. You find that all of these wonderful programs to help us all keep our homes, and our ability receive health care are bull shit, you will get nothing but scammed or told you have to much money for this program or that program. You  are once again on your own. Everyone will tell you, they can't take you dignity. They will try and come damn close. I went back to school to try to better myself. It was incredibly hard to do, with the learning disabilities I had developed. I took 4 years to get an Associates of Science Degree, as I had to go so slow and there were times I had to stay out a semester or 2 because I couldn't even afford gas to get to school.  I found out after I had a Neuropsych evaluation done that my short term memory is now non existent. I can no longer read and retain anything and give any details about it. I know I read it, I can give you the gist of it, but I can not pull out any specific information, I have the same problem with verbal instructions. It seems now the only way I can learn is to touch it. I can still learn by touch. My memory is now a little note book I write down everything I need to remember in. I also have a PTSD problem, which I don't really understand, the Psychologist tells me I have the same PTSD profile as a combat veteran, again I don't get it. I must be depressed she says, I asked her why can't I just be frustrated and pissed off, but apparently it is mandatory. In the end you are left twisting in the wind. Those that have good support systems can deal better. I spend the majority of my time chasing money and trying to find a way to make money to live on. There comes a point that you either give up or you suck it up and do what has to be done, adapt and over come. It just takes a while. I will fight my way out and I will win, or I will die in the process. Another thing I have learned is that I do not fear death. It is a freeing concept. Yes I will die and you will die, it is as much a part of life as being born. The only thing I don't want is to leave a mess for others to clean up and the burden of a funeral. It is nothing to fear. Cancer survivors are not free. You become very conscious of your body and what goes on with it; you look over your shoulder for the rest of your life to see if "it" is coming for you again. must of us fight through pain and  a diminished self daily. You have a new, or different normal. You will never be what you were, but you can be a fabulous version of a new you.
     Politics and religion. I am a very spiritual person, but I will have no truck with man's religions. Spiritualism brings people and cultures together. Religion seeks to divide people and control them. that is why the founding fathers saw the need to separate religion from government. Religions have driven the politics of  countries for millennia with abysmal results. More blood has spilled in the name of religion than any other reason. People that tout their religion avow it rightness are the most divisive people I have ever met. People go to be good church going believers one day a week and become anything but the rest of the week. Instead of taking the teachings of love and care for one another which is the basic tenant of  all religions. the leaders only pick those parts that separate us and lead to hate and a false idea of superiority. Teach your children to embrace everyone, and to fear nothing.
I am now an independent politically. Both parties a peopled largely by ego maniacal idiots that believe in their intellectual superiority and you are a peasant simpleton that has no idea how to conduct your life. There is one of these "leaders" that thinks the 172,000 dollars a year he makes to work 160 days a year with a cadillac benefits package and outrageous retirement plan is not enough. for his part time job. The cutting of entitlements should start with these people. I don't mind that senators and congressmen make a good living while they work, but they should work for the benefit of us all and not the benefit of themselves and corporate america. The collusion and treasonous behavior must stop. The dumbing down of America must stop. Education has to become a real priority not lip service. We need to fix our own back yard before we worry about everyone else.Our children need to learn real history, not the revisionist garbage that fits an agenda. That we have people that graduate high school that can not read or write is inexcusable.  We need to keep the promises made to our veterans and not cast them aside. We must help the poor pull themselves up. The so called job creators are not that, they are job exporters. The only jobs they have created are for domestic help, gardeners, drivers , and yacht crews. The middle class with disposable income are the job creators. When people buy stuff, you have to make more stuff, which requires people to be hired to make the stuff, that is where economic growth comes from. It is not government or corporations that will save the economy, it is mom and pop. Bankers have to be brought control period, they have no ability to regulate themselves. They have become the largest criminal element in this country. Remember we don not live in a democracy. We live in a Constitutional Republic, with democratically elected representatives. With that in mind, the Bill of Rights are not a list of rights granted to the people, they are the rules government must work within. Government and law can not supersede the rights protected by it. You can not give any right away or allow them to be taken. If one is lost all are lost. They do it by creating a divisive atmosphere that requires taking sides or become a one issue voter, don't fall into that trap. Don't accept, know. If a politician speaks, they speak lies until you verify other wise. Educate yourself and vote.
     I could say a lot more but I will leave it as it is. Support research and your favorite cancer person and caregiver as well. the caregivers take the same trip.  

Going back to school

I finally have gottten myself back into school. I hope mey chemo adled brain can deal with it, and it will give me something to do besides thumb twiddle.
I'll let you know how it goes.

Willie

Why I should be elected king. Not in a monarchical sense, but in a reverse feudalism sense. I believe it the only way to correct the run amok politicians of today. All elected officials must give an oath to the rites of chivalry, and must swear an oath of fealty to their constituents.


The politicians must also be personally responsible for their legislation, ( unintended consequences of their bill),. The only perks allowed them would be the same as any other government employee. If they introduce a bill written by a corporation, they should be held for a treasonous act. Public flogging should be brought back for just such offenses. If the politician in question is not serving their constituents, the body may snatch them up out of their chair in house or senate which ever the case may be and give them the boot. They must study the constitution and the bill of rights as well as the federalists letters from which the Constitution came. I'll bet less than half of them could quote the preamble .
We are heading towards a socialist society. It must stop. All the laws written and past that run counter to the constitution must be nullified, and you would be surprised how many laws are in direct conflict with constitution. We the people must rise up and take back the government. Study, learn and vote smartly.
My kingship would last six years, that should be enough time to fix most things, I would get the boot.

Willie

Adventures in stem cell land

I Went through the rest of my chemo treatments, (RICE), without to much drama other than do you feel like you were hit by the big bus or the little bus today.

My pet and ct scans came back clean, so it was time to get ready for the stem cell transplant.

I had to go through another set of chest X-rays, a mugga scan, every blood test you can imagine, and another bone marrow biopsy. Once i went back to see the Wizzard,(DR. Choa), I was good to go.

The next day they removed my port and installed a 2 lumen Hickman. Unlike a port witch is implanted, a hickman is an external device and feeds into your jugular vein.

Got my lovely room, 9205 duke North. The first day I had a BNU infusion, wich is some real interesting stuff. It is so unstatble That it is kept in a dark temp. controlled vault. I can't be mixed with Sodium cloride, or gloucose. It is mixed with ethanol. The dear girl that administered it was wearing what amounts to a hazmat suit. All of that makes one take pause and ponder the safety of all this.

Once you hae been infused with the racing fuel cocktail, it made the tissues of my upper body feel like they were on fire on a cellullar level.

I had to them keep putting cold compressess on my to keep from losing my mind. The really bad part of it all is you don't even get a buzz out of it.

After all that tourture the next day is a free day. They did check on me about every thirty minutes I guess to make sure I was still alive. Other wise it was an exciting day of walking the halls, and watching the cable system they have. I did have the ipod , wich was helpful.

03/31/07

Today is vp16 day. That I have before so it is no big deal; that was administered by new nurse Kerri.

03/31/07

Had no blood peassure last night and no sleep.

04/01/07

Nothing to report for once.

Simple efosphomide infusion

04/02/07

Get out of in patient clinic! Yea

One sobering aspect of this stemm cell thing is that it is not a sure thing or easy. The Gentleman in the next room to me died the Saturday after I left The Isolation floor.

4/3/07

Today is day zero. The day of my transplant. So here I sit in my little infusion room , waiting for the lovely nurse Lisa to accumulate all the instruments and accoutraments for my stemming. So, I be sitting here chillin. Peggy the RN practioner came to splain some things to me; I like her, she is a hoot.

Finally nurse Lisa returns and proceeds to give me some great stemming. A voice like butta she has, OY!. She could probably talk me into anything.

04/04/07

New word for today misconstrudle. Means the same theing as misconstru. Some thing my care giver came up with. I have a new P.A. Brent. Looks like he is a 12 year old super geek, but his sure enough on the ball.

i have been givena bird house project to work on to help pass the time while at the clinic. I will have to ask if I may bring one of my cannon projects to work on.

04/05/07

My lap top needs an adjustment from a 5lb hammer, it is really getting on my nerves.To day I needed some magnessium but I am recovering famously other wise.

As far as a project to amuse myseolf in clinic, I am told I may not build a connon, or bring ball powder, or any other acoutrament to go with such. Amy did say we could discuss bb guns though.

04/06/07

Not much going on today. I am snoozing in the chair waiting for super geek Master Brent to show. Brent has a baby! 12 year old looking Brent has a super geek baby! I would have never thunk it.

Couldn't get a cannon modle in a timely fashion, so that is off for now. It would be interesting to calculate how much of a charge you need to luanch a one inch ball across the atrium into the water fixture. I could go into the atrium with the scale motor and yell out you will be assimilated, "BOOM". Resistance is futile! Of course they may haul me off to the loony bin after that.

04/07/07

The batteries died in my infusion pump at four am this morning. Had to send the nurse out for fresh ones so it would stop beeping!

04/08/07

Today they said I would get plates. I really hope they are royal dalton. I always wanted a set of those, but then I heard plattellettes, thats different. and not whatI wanted.

04/09/07

Eating is difficult, my blood preassure is low, very lethargic.

04/10/07

I go for my check up and my blood preassure is 80 over 40. My heart rate is so rapid they can only guestimate it at 188. They work on me with drugs and I.V. fluids to try to get it back up and slow my heart down, but it doesn't work. They ship me over to medical ICU wich I refer to as the dungeon. There I am told after working on my for 5 more hour they are going to have to shock me. She says we will sedate you because it hurts. Okay I'm all for that, but I think she just shot me up with elctrolites and flipped the switch. Fuck me running did that hurt. It helped though. By that time they had me on so many drugs I had reached a psychotic state, and my breathing had almost stopped. The put me in a comma and hooked me up to a respirator. Mean while a team of psychiatrits are tying to figure out how to get me out of the psychotic state. In this dungeon the slap a foley on me and a rectal tube neither done in a very gentle and loving manner, and ignoring everything I tell them about my colon problem. They csertainly did enjoy re-inserting the anal tube over and over. I think they enjoyed my misery.

Don't know the date

Finally I am released from the dungeon and sent back up to the bone marrow floor. 2 days after that I am allowed to leave the hospital. From there I go to an appartment where you must stay wthinn 5 miles of the clinic incase of something going wrong. Other than that I have just suffered the usual, nausea diarreah, lack of strenght ect, that every one else does. The big thing is you do next to nothing for almost the next year. You can't garden, you can't be in crowds without a mask, you can pet you pets but they can;t lick you or kiss you, or sleep with you. your living in a bubble without the physical bubble so to speak. every time you touch something you have to sanitize your hands.

So it has been a fun trip. Now I sit at home play with the computer, watch tv and read a lot, and that's about it.

From now on I will keep my journal up dated in a more timely fashion.

I did get my cancer gun back. it is engraved with the date of my diagnoses, and has a space for my 5 year "cure"date, or the date of my untimely demise. I know it is a bad picture but it is the one in the front.

This election year

With the up coming elections, here are some things I would like to see.

• I would like to see candidates held responsible for the campaign claims and accusations.
• I would like to see them held accountable for un intended consequences of the legislation they introduce.
• I admonish candidates to truthfully explain their stand on issues of importance.
• Issues of importance, education, healthcare, immigration, not wasting taxpayer money, meaningful company reform that makes a legislator criminally liable for misconduct, campaign reform that allows the common individual to run for office, the removal of perks that make office attractive to career politicians. There are I'm sure plenty more that I can't think of at the moment.

I am myself a registered republican. I used to be a democrat back in the day when the democratic party was the tolerant party. Then every ones opinion was of value, the constitution was held as sacred, and the will of the people drove party politics. Today the democratic party has become in reality the new socialist party, bent on telling you how you should act and live. Their whole center is for an elitist few to tell you what is best for you, and you should accept it without question. In reality my political leanings are libertarian, but we will never elect one to a meaningful office, until people stop accepting political status quo and think for them selves.
When a politician spews some information as gospel to promote their agenda, do some research, you will find 95% of the time they are as full of it as christmas goose. Besides telling outright lies on the campaign trail, they will also lie by omission. Meaning they will take a group of facts, leave out those that are contrary to their point of view and fluff up the ones that support their point of view. Remember these people are more interested in power and perks than actually serving you. It is unfortunate, but my study of the subject bears it out as more true than not. There are some politicians that do make an effort to serve those that elected them, but it is difficult for them to be successful, since they don't follow party lines, generally don't belong to the good ole boy club, they are not in the lime light. Try to think of one of theses rare politicians, I'm sure you have heard of one or two, but I bet you can't remember their names.
The political culture needs to lay off the constitution and bill of rights. They are pretty simple documents, not difficult to understand, and I am not willing to give up or have one right infringed for political gain or some false sense of safety. Did you know that there is a law tha directly violates the right to free speach, in that 60 days before an election, no non profit organization may make comment good or bad about a politician, party or campaign? This means the A.C.L.U. may not speak out about any civil liberties problems they perceive, nor can the N.R.A. , M.A.DD. or any other such organization speak on any matter or political person or party. In short stop wasting my time and money on theses b.s. sensationalized campaign ploys. Again if you actually study these issues and not take "their" word for it, you find it to be a mountain of pure B.S..
Remember the only thing politicians respond to is the power of the vote, especially when they are voted out of office. and of course money, but what can you do about that.
My own leanings, are moderate conservative. I think everyone should have the same oprtunity of happiness or misery with a spouse gay, straight makes no difference, to me it is a non issue. I support women's rights and right to choose. I am a staunch second amendment supporter. You are free to observe the religious practices of your choosing, society, religion, and government should be able to co-exist. Education should be a sacred cow not a sacrificial lamb. Immigration needs to be seriously addressed, be here legally or be gone. Intitlements should be for those who really need them not the chronically lazy, or illegal immigrants. Banks should be brought under control. 15 years ago 20% interest was considered usury, now 25% is acceptable? Banks make more money now than they ever have in their history, I have no sympathy for them what ever. The same for insurance companies. There must be tort reform as lawyers have gotten carried away with them selves, (note most politicians are lawyers). There are probably other Items I could list I'm sure, but I am starting to ramble. One last big one, government must become physcally responsible, and stop breaking the backs of the middle class for it over spending.
Willie
Register to vote and be a smart voter.
Willie

My cancer diary

I was diagnosed with stage 4 diffuse large b cell lymphoma 1-23-06. Lymphoma is a cancer that involves the lymphnodes in your immune system. It took nearly a year of being diagnosed with all manner of things until the nail was hit on the head. It was diagnosed as stage 4 since it involved my liver. Since that point, life has certainly changed and become a true
learning experience.
The treatments for my lymphoma have been a joy. The preferred method of delivering chemo is through a port inserted under the skin in your chest. The port is used because the some of the chemo drugs can do a lot tissue damage if they leak outside of a vein, and your veins have a tendency to collapse after so much use for I.V.'s. Usually this is a simple out patient procedure, but in my case I ended up with a collapsed left lung, and after a 2 day stay in the hospital, I was up and running so to speak. After 2 weeks, the lung collapsed again. In one way it was a good thing since the x-ray showed that the port catheter had dislodged from near the right atrium of the heart and ended up in my jugular vein with a little hook in it. The procedure was done again and has held fine to date. Chemo itself is basically a controlled poisoning of your body to kill cancer cells. The side effects of some of the drugs can be extreme. In the case of Rituxian, the first time it is administered you have to be watched because you can go into what is referred to as "rigors". What happens, is, your heart and lungs try to shut down and you shake, after that happens they can figure out how much pre-drugs to give you so you can tolerate the Rituxian.
With chemo you do loose your hair. I have lost hair in places I didn't think you were supposed to loose hair. Most people do become very sick from the chemo.
Treatments were going along fine, and the oncologist was ready to pronounce me in remission, when one of tumors on my colon died and infected part of it. I went to the E.R. with severe abdominal pain, nausea, and vomiting. I ended up having emergency sugery to remove 2 and1/2 feet of gangrene colon. After that was over, my oncologist sent me to a friend of his at Duke Medical Center for a second opinion and how best to continue treatment.
The oncologist at Duke sent me to see the Chief of the Adult Bone Marrow Transplant Clinic there. After different tests and discussion, my chemo regime was changed to a more aggressive one and I have been set up for a stem cell transplant, that requires I spend 30 days at Duke to have done. I have gone from a 90% survivability rate to a 40% survivability rate in a matter of 6 weeks. These new treatments are supposed to get me back up to a 70% survivability rate.
So far my treatments have cost in excess of $160,000. With the stem cell transplant I expect that to double. I have been unable to work for most of these 8 months, so I am now as broke as a church mouse. It is difficult to live off of short term disability to begin with. Insurance companies make applying for long term disability so difficult, I am sure they are counting on you giving up before you finish the process. I have also found out that as a middle aged middle class
American citizen, I qualify for nothing. The only assistance I have been able to get so far has been from cancer advocacy groups. Applying for Social Security Disability has been a truly trying experience. According to their own web site, it takes 120 days minimum to process your application and the probability of you being approved is basically a crap shoot. Their web site also states, using an attorney gives you a 90% chance of approval. That is why you see all the attorney adds on the T.V.. After you have been denied they will take your case for percentage of the back pay which can be considerable seeing as how it can take as much as 10 months to win your case. In the mean time besides the cost of your treatment, you have co-pays to make, drugs to buy, a roof to keep over your head, utilities, and food to buy. Even though it is hard on me, I can not imagine how it must be for people with no insurance, the elderly on fixed incomes, and those that have no care givers to help them. In my opinion we have a healthcare system badly in need of over haul. Not the kind of socialized medicine the Democrats call for, but a meaningful over haul of an abused and at times corrupt system.
A catastrophic illness requires a care giver, some one to get you where you need to go for treatments, at times speak for you, and take care of your basic needs on occasion. There are times you are so sick you can't do for yourself. I am fortunate to have a care giver that is always there for me and goes above beyond what is necessary to help me. I am also fortunate to have a few good friends that look after me.
I started this blog to give me something to do besides watch T.V. and have meaningful conversations with my pets. I thank you for reading and having this opportunity to vent my frustrations. I plan to continue with the blog as things progress and maybe add a few other things to it as well

Willie