Finished with Treatment

It's been a long five and a half weeks, but I am finally finished with radiation treatment. The side effects weren't too bad. There is a sunburn-like spot on my lower back, I've been pretty tired and I've had some mild nausea, but overall things have gone pretty well. I'm going to have scans in early March. It will probably be too soon to see any major changes on my spine, but it will allow us to make sure that there are no other spots of concern. At that point my doctor and I will discuss the possibility of doing a round of preventative chemo to try and extend the time between recurrences. The drawback is that I would be spending a good chunk of that interval on chemo. I didn't do that well on chemotherapy a couple of years ago, so that will be a difficult decision that we will make.

On an equally unpleasant note, I was notified recently that, despite being told that the treatment center would get pre-approval from the insurance company, they had never received any approval and the insurance company had decided to deny my claim. In fact, they had processed an initial appeal of the denial on my behalf and been rejected before I was told anything. Needless to say, I wasn't happy.

This is the first time that I have had to deal with an insurance issue like this and it is quite nerve wracking. Janet has used her connections with Livestrong to start getting us some support from cancer advocacy groups. Also, the cancer center will help me with a couple more rounds of appeals that are available to me. I'm hopeful that we may succeed, though the prospect of being on the hook for tens of thousands of dollars in medical bills is daunting. My guess is that it will be a couple of months before all the appeals are exhausted. The most frustrating part is that I asked about it up front, was told not to worry and didn't know there was a problem until I was more than halfway through treatment.

Thank you all for your prayers and support. They have meant a lot. I would appreciate your continued prayers over the next few weeks as the scan comes in early March, and as we continue to deal with the insurance issues. Now, I am off to bed, as one of the side effects that will likely linger for a few weeks is fatigue. Thankfully, I at least won't be heading to treatment at 7:45 pm every weeknight any longer, so I can hopefully get more sleep!