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With a weekend to mull over things, Monday came just in time. And so did my "Breast Cancer Nurse Navigator," Dottye Wodogaza. A phone call at 9:00 A.M. from this peach of a Belle who clearly knows how to get where she wants and on her terms, told me I could finally relax and take the next steps. Never before was a title better suited as Dottye steered me through the maze of paperwork, and appointments, even providing me with reams of information about my particular cancer and its treatments, as well as a wealth of services available through Palmetto Health Richland, the University of South Carolina, and the American Cancer Society. Makes my first time around twenty years ago seem almost archaic. And she set me up with my first appointments.
A note here: Following my first cancer and the divorce that followed, I lost my health insurance. Bad decision on my part to not ask my ex to continue to pay my premiums, but, of course I had not considered the uncovered expenses of cancer that would follow me for the coming 10 years, putting me into financial distress and forcing me to drop my coverage. As a result, I was never able to purchase insurance that would cover breast cancer as a pre-existing condition. Only in the past year with the Health Care Reform Act passed by Congress would I be able to get insurance. But at 62, I was nearing retirement age and a Medicare benefit at 66, so I hoped for the best. For the past 15 years or so, I have been depending on the Eau Claire Cooperative Health Center in my neighborhood for my medical care. There are many programs that have helped me get regular mammograms, a colonoscopy several years ago and gall bladder surgery in 2008. Like so many people without insurance, I was doing the best I could to stay well. I had also quit smoking and gained almost 50 pounds! My doctors were not so concerned with the weight gain; better to be a non-smoker again.
Here's where Dottye really helped save the day. Dottye and I discussed insurance. She told me to go by the finance office and ask for a “Cervical and Breast Cancer Act Application.” This act, passed first in 2000 by Congress, provides women on Medicaid with treatment for breast and cervical cancer. The Obama Administration through its Health Reform Act of 2010 increased the scope of the law to allow people like me, not on Medicaid but of low income, to benefit from the program. I could have cried. How I would be able to pay for all this was a nagging concern. Following my first surgery I often said, “Sometimes survival is worse than the disease.” Maybe this will bring a little piece of mind as I go through this process.
Doctors, Tests, ETC.
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Dr. Nottingham |
Like I said, Dottye set me up with several appointments. The first was with Dr Nottingham, my surgeon. A name you can't forget is equalled only by a cheerful, red-head who could well have stepped out of one of Chaucer's tales or Sherwood Forest. "So, what do you wanna do?" he asked. Like I know anything. "Off with their heads!" I cried. He laughed. I know he's a surgeon. He wouldn't be in the picture otherwise. Over the years, I have kept up with the literature. Had I known then what I know now, I would have had both breasts removed at the get-go. (And I wouldn't be sitting here today).
I've been toying with the idea of reconstruction (which I didn't have following my first surgery), but will probably opt to go "topless." When I was in my 20s, my friends and I would joke that, if I ever had breast cancer, nobody would notice, Probably true. My size A cups have always been a smidge too small for my XL posterior. A "pear" indeed!
But there was more to Dr. Nottingham's visit than surgery. He told me that the tumor was larger than they wanted (which I already knew) and that I would go through chemotherapy before surgery in order to shrink the mass. My oncologist would determine the treatment and we would be back, probably after the first of the year, 2011.
There was one other rather startling thing Dr. Nottingham told me. He said that the doctors and staff at Palmetto Health Breast Center meet each week to discuss their cases. Every week, he told me, there are no less than TWENTY NEW CASES of breast cancer! That's at one of two primary cancer centers in the central midlands of South Carolina with a population of probably 600,000 people. That's more than 2,000 NEW cases of breast cancer every year or 1 in 300 people (men included) were diagnosed with breast cancer in the central midlands of South Carolina this year!
Though so much has changed in the treatment of breast cancer; so much emphasis has been put on "the cure," and so much public awareness of self-exams, "buddy calls" between friends, etc., the rate of cancer seems to be growing. Though early detection is also responsible for the numbers, we all have to know that environmental causes are so much more a factor.
Next up: More tests and reflections
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