Aetna sux redux

I finally heard from Aetna concerning the denial of my port check x-rays amounting to about $1300. When I had radiation, they would take daily x-rays to make sure I lined up so I would be zapped in the right place. But Aetna says I am only allowed 2 per 5 day period and that I should have known that and should have questioned the operators. I shouldn't have assumed that they knew what they were doing. My physician wrote that these port checks were medically necessary but Aetna didn't address that. It just repeated that they would pay no more than 2 x-rays per week. The website I was supposed to consult has absolutely no information about radiation treatment and its requirements. Nevermind I saved these idiots money by having the 3 week treatment vs the 6-7 week program standard in the US. My letter of denial was written in such obtuse language, I could not understand it beyond the fact my appeal is denied. My former company has a plan administrator who is dealing with this now. I am not optimistic.

Aside of the terror of a possible early death and very delibitating, humilating treatments, cancerfest has the additional bonus of financial aggravations. I am lucky that I had good insurance for most of the treatment. Unfortunately, I got stuck with Aetna since mid January with its high deductables, co-pays, and now denials for standard procedures. Argh!!!

I ran in the pouring rain this morning. As long as it is warm and not windy, I really don't mind but it is hard to see with my glasses all fogged. It turned into a thunderstorm right after I finished.

Labor Day Blues

Labor Day always makes me sad-end of summer and and the beginning of homework to supervise. As my children are now all adults, the homework supervision days should have been coming to an end but Naomi needs lots of help.

Today is humid and drizzly but the last few days have been beautiful. Yesterday I went for a 25 mile bike ride with a friend who just started riding after a 35 year break. I figured rail trails should be a good beginning as the grade is never more than what a train can handle (about 3%) but there was a good size hill in between the two trails we rode. No wind though (nothing worse than riding into a head wind for miles). I used to ride quite a bit doing centuries (100 mile rides), multiday rides, some with Naomi and Josh though not together both strong riders, and doing triathlons but haven't rode for a while, in part due to the broken arm and then chemo balance problems. I did test my balance yesterday and it's back to normal. But Josh left the bike maladjusted and I didn't have time to fiddle with the brake rubbing the front tire slightly (at least the tires were pumped) so I got even a better workout. I was quite stiff today as I started my run but fortunately loosened up. I ran into 3 police cars surrounding the house of a high school friend of Shanna's. Must be a story behind that.

I have lots of morning glory vines twining all over the place but no blossoms or even buds. This is the first time that happened. I do have a stunted plant that was in the shade that has buds. I'll be sad when the frost hits killing most of my flowers. Last year that didn't happen until late October.

We went out to dinner with Josh and Julia and her sister last night. Good times.

Cortez

Finally asleep

Naomi and her little charge Cortez

So many of Naomi's friends are having babies. As much as I love grandchildren, I am really hoping for her not to join the crowd until she can earn a living. Cortez was born just a few days after her 17 year old friend graduated making him 12 weeks now. He is very cute but I wanted to show her how much work he is. To console him, she had to keep walking for an hour. She wanted to sit down but I said, Keep walking-He'll know you're sitting down. The mom came to pick him up 4 hours later-2 hours after she said she would. Lots of lessons learned.

ieri (yesterday)

I prefer the word 'domani' or even better 'dopodomani' (the day after tomorrow) as they are easier for this one to pronounce. I am still listening to my tapes to keep the Italian cadences fresh in my mind. Still I can only trill my 'r's occasionally. This is one thing that Naomi excelled at -rolling her 'r's in Spanish. Understanding the grammar, e.g. figuring out when to use soy vs estoy, not so much.

She did like her art glass earrings from the Corning Glass Museum. I served some of the rainbow cookies she requested to the moms last night as she has stopped eating treats. She looked healthy at 155 but is down to 132 which might sound alot but she is very big boned and is slightly over 5'10".

Yesterday would have been Daniel's birthday if he hadn't insisted on coming out early. Presumably the fetus secretes some substance that initiates labor. Perhaps he has tired of being in his awkward position (one leg up by his ears, the other leg down-when they pulled on one leg, the other got stuck).

I had a pleasant 3 hour lunch with a former colleague yesterday. Screw the salads, I went for the Casey Burger for the first time in a long time. If that wasn't bad enough, I had the moms over later for appetizers and drinks. Lots of little goodies though one made a healthy Caprese salad.It was a nice night out and we sat out way past dark lit up only with my solar light collection. The mosquitoes weren't too bad but during the day, the yellow jackets have become pesky before the time they usually do. I wish I could find their nests and get rid of them. I still see a hummingbird once a day-not nearly as much as one of the other moms who has several buzzing around her flowers and feeders at any one time.

Will need to run plenty today to atone.

Hair issues

Today on the TNBC boards, a woman posted that although she finished her chemo 2 months ago, all her eyelashes and eyebrows suddenly fell out really upsetting her. She had asked her onc specifically if she were done with hair loss and was told she would be. Been there! One poster said she went through the eyelash/eyebrow loss cycle 5 times now. Another took all kinds of supplements to make them come back, which they did. Mine came back with no supplements surprisingly enough. They fell out over a 2 week period at the end of April after being full all through chemo, which ended 3-10. By mid-May, they were almost completely back but this August, most of them fell out again only in a staggered fashion so I wasn't ever completely lashless and eyebrowless. As of now, I have skimpy eyebrows, all of my lower lashes and the uppers are at half-length. I hope this is the end of it. I am amazed that the poisons have such long term effects and should count my blessings that I haven't been affected more as many of my breast cancer sisters have been. Still have some residual digestive issues though.

A neighbor suddenly pulled into my driveway yesterday as I was watering my rock garden. I'm so sorry-I just heard you have breast cancer and I didn't help you at all!!! Well I was diagnosed almost a year ago but I am almost all better except for the hair, but thank-you for wanting to help. She did say that she really liked my hair.

I was going through my old papers yesterday throwing out what needed to be tossed and I came upon the Zometa study protocol consent form, which I decided to have nothing to do with. Zometa might be useful in preventing bone mets but I would need monthly infusions for THREE years. What got me though is that they have 2 different experimental assays to determine your risk for developing bone mets (n-telopeptide and parathyroid hormone related protein) which they would perform on you BUT THEY WOULD NOT TELL YOU OR YOUR DOCTOR THE RESULTS!!! Their excuse is that these assays are experimental and thus not accurate but I don't buy that one bit. They could easily give you the results with those warnings in hand though maybe if they told you that you were low risk, you'd bolt from the study.Sadly although some people with TNBC do get bone mets, they are more likely to get soft tissue mets instead-lung, liver , and brain more or less in that order. I was told that Zometa MIGHT prevent those too but that sounded really shaky to me. And the drug has side effects such as jaw bone necrosis. I know that no drug gets approved without clinical trials but there has to be more benefit to the patient.
I hate the fact that they have my tumor performing all sorts of assays on it and not sharing with me the results, some of which could possibly be helpful to me.

I did agree to the chemobrain study only if I get the results. They were actually taken back by my request. They were asking that I be in a that claustrophobic, thumping tube (fMRI) for 3 hours total (over 3 sessions) just to be nice. But they did (after some phone calls) agree to my request but since it isn't in writing, we'll see. They tested my functioning before chemo, right after chemo and will a year later to see if my functions have returned.

Went out with a good friend for Happy Hour last night. We sat outside. It actually was chilly! Where has summer gone?

Daniel update

The little sweetie is now 2 weeks old. He lost a lot of weight initially due to his prematurity but has almost gained it back and is doing well. He still has to be wakened up to eat sometimes during the day but is gradually becoming more alert. His dad is taking two weeks of paternity leave to help with Oliver.

I am loving the cool, dry air in the morning making my runs so much easier. I do miss the flatness of the seashore but here there is no concrete.

I am back to helping Naomi with her classwork. She likes her teachers and knows so many kids there. Not sure what her plans are to move out. She has been told that she needs to pay for an apartment herself meaning she needs a job. The place that has tentatively agreed to hire her still hasn't opened due to they say, problems getting utilities. Her potential roommate is not in good financial shape either. She came over 7 am yesterday needing to use our computer. Still I rather have her share a place with this girl than the boyfriend.

Next on my agenda is to plan my Italian trip next month and brush up on my Italian.

Community College

Community College (for my international friends) is usually a 2 year program after high school though Naomi will probably be there 4 years to get her degree in nursing. They accept everyone who applies but do have certain requirements to get in certain programs. Usually it is much less money per credit hour than even state-supported 4 year schools. Enrollment now is bursting at the seams due to a return of jobless, older students who need retraining and the many families that can not afford the tuition of a 4 year school. Also it is possible to switch to a 4 year school after 2 years, which ends up saving quite a bit of money. Still I had a hard time accepting that a community college was where Naomi needed to go. When I was in college, I assumed that people who went to them were too stupid to get into a good school. I was very eager to get away from home so having to go to a community college (always for commuters)would really have been sad for me. I believe one grows up so much more away from home but Naomi is not ready for that. We did send the older kids away even though Shanna went to UM in a dorm 5 miles away from us. Josh came home every weekend from his school to see his girlfriend Julia who for a while, stayed with us while he was away. Her parents had moved out of state.

With the economy so bad for everyone, the stigma isn't so strong as it once was. Today Naomi brought an ex-teammate from her travelling volleyball team home for lunch that she found at her school. On travelling teams, you really get to know the parents because you end up with them for entire weekends away from home. I knew from her mother that this girl was a top student who could get in many places but I suspect the economy has forced them to downsize expectations. The girl said that half of her graduating class is at WCC so she is not alone. The class sizes are small at WCC so the kids get some individual attention instead of the 500 person lectures at UM.

I can't believe it is September. Although time really dragged on during those bleak winter months that I got chemo, it has flew since then. On 9-10, it will be a year that I was in the land of cancer. I can't say that I have fully recovered though my oil glands, most of my energy, and some of my hair is back. At a rest stop the other day, a woman was struggling with snarls in her hair and looked at me saying that she wished she would just cut off her hair like I did. She really liked my hair style. I didn't say that it has been 14 months since my last hair cut. Instead of being blondish-white, it is more salt and pepper. It is also wavy and grows away from my head instead of lying flat (if I had let it-I used plenty of products and blowdrying so it wouldn't be flat). My lower eyelashes are long again though the uppers are only half-length. My eyebrows are gradually filling in again.

It was only 37 deg yesterday morning though the temp climbed to 75. This cool, dry weather is easy to run in, which I have been doing since I've returned. All the rain we had in my absence has not been good for my petunias, geraniums, and morning glories. My hibiscus is covered with blossoms though. The zinnias and cosmos are doing OK.

Poor Spud! Cutting his nails really upsets him. I needed a cool day to cut them so he wouldn't hyperventilate and also so he could stay outside if he bled. I need to do it more often now as he can't walk very far to wear them down.