Growing Medical Bills

[edtremblay]

Hi I'm new here trying to figure out how things work so please try to bear with me . I'm a 56 year old male Army Vietnam vet with stage 4 lung cancer. I've applied for and been granted ssdi but will not receive anything until September. My VA claim is pending and that looks several months away at a minimum the bills for Chemo and Radiation add up fast and while I have health insurance there is alot unpaid does anyone know if there will be any payment of these treatments from the VA once I'm rated??? Does anyone have any resources for litigation against the manufacturers of agent orange and the other herbicides that are causing all the problems??? This is an awesome site and I'm glad to have found it I'm proud to be a member thanks in advance for any help anyone can provide.

Sincerely Ed Tremblay

and thank you to all who have already helped and will consider helping wow what a family

[free_spirit_etc]

Yeah. My husband was given 3 weeks to 3 months to live in 2004 - when the cancer had spread to the aorta. But he just kept right on living. And I don't mean staying alive - I mean living. His set back for awhile was the combined chemo and raditaiton. Each one takes its toll - but combined they really kick your butt. But they are much more effective that way. And you will be able to regain your strength pretty rapidly once you have finished those.

I didn't notice how much worse my husband looked when he was on the combined treatments until AFTER - when he started rebuilding -then I would look at his pictures from the year before and say OMG! You looked totally awful back then! lol

It is good that you are SO proactive. You have to be. Because other people will try to make decisions that affect YOUR life.

It helps to get ALL your medical reports and read them. I wish we had.

Now they do chemo after surgey..as it really boosts your odds. At the time my husband had his lobectomey in 2000 - they didn't do follow up chemo. It wasn't the standard practice. He was "cured" by surgery. But when his cancer supposedly recurred in 2003 - it was right at the bronchial stump - in the very place they had removed the lobe. I do not believe it "came back." I believe there was a little bit left - and as they didn't do chemo back then to destroy the remaining cells -- it was able to regenerate itself.

They redected the cancer in 2003 (Nov). For some reason they didn't do surgery until June 2004. They kept telling him they had to get authorizations from Tri-Care - this doctor had to talk to that doctor, etc. etc. - But it just kept going around the loop.

So by they time THEY all got it together - when they did the surgery to remove the rest of the lung - they found the cancer had already spread to his aorta. So they left the lung in - and didn't remove it.

And they ALL made sure to document in their records that HE (my husband) had put the surgery off! CYA

But he kept asking why they couldn't remove the lung and the section of aorta. They kept telling him that can't be done. Yet they remove aortas all the time. Yes. It can be risky. But it can be done.

When we got copies of his medical records last summer - we read the report. That was the first time we knew that they had removed a rib for biopsy because it looked "suspicious" The lab report on the rib came back negative. No cancer. No abnormal cells.

And the surgeons report stated that upon attempting to remove the lung they discovered the tumor had adhered to the aorta. (This was still ONE tumor that had "spread" by growing to attach itself to the aorta - NOT cancer that had grown into multiple tumors). The doctor stated he had debated whether to dissect the aorta and decided against it.

When I read the report I was ticked to the MAX! They never TOLD him that. I realized - OMG! The doctor though the cancer had already spread to the bone - so he didn't see any use in taking the tumor out. It had NOT spread to the bone! The bone came back negative - and none of the tests AFTER that showed it had EVER spread to the bone.

But that doctor made that decision - and didn't even TELL him.

My husband deserved to be TOLD the TRUTH (I thought the cancer had spread to the bone - so I didn't see much use in removing it." Or even "The bone came back negative - But I STILL think it might have spread to the bone - so I don't recommend surgically removing it.")

But just to keep telling him you CAN'T resect the aorta - rather than that you decided not to - is just wrong in my book!

How can a doctor sentence their patient to death without give them the chance to defend themselves?

So keep up your proactive stance!! Question EVERYTHING! It is YOUR life!

Free

Perhaps if I had had some symptoms that might have worked but I was working 10 hours a day driving another three and I felt like a million dollars all I had was a lump on my neck the treatments have nearly killed me lol