Kris, Dave and the Lumps: Chemo #5, Week #2

Monday, 4-Aug-2008:
Went to see Dr Kuisle, the plastic surgeon. Our impression from Dr Moran was that we would be able to do surgery middle or early of September. Dr Kuisle put the kabosh on that! We will be having surgery in Early October. This means that Kris will be out longer than 6 months which means she has to wade through the mountain of paper work for Long Term Disability (LTD form here on out).

Warning: anatomically correct stuff to follow, don't read this part if you are squeamish or don't want to read words that might offend the easily offended.

Dr Kuisle said that there will be an outpatient procedure first. This is to clip off some blood vessels that feed the tissue in her stomach that will be used to reconstruct her breast. Not to fear, these blood vessels are from below, there is another set from above. The set from above will be used to supply fresh blood (and remove blood which needs refreshing) from the new breast. The idea is that they want to strengthen the set from above and make sure that it's the primary source of blood for this tissue. There will also be subsequent surgeries to balance both breasts. You don't want one brand new perky breast and the other one either higher or lower so, he'll be adjusting the one to match the other... well, within the norm. Much like feet, both are almost never perfectly identical (part of what makes us unique, and special... and human).

Resume to the safe stuff:
We also saw Dr. Jones. He hemmed and hawed and basically said that things look good enough (in relation to the port wound which still hasn't closed). We told him about our visit with Dr. Kuisle and he said that he'd leave the port wound alone for Dr. Kuisle to deal with. We said that when he takes it out, Dr. Kuisle wouldn't be touching the right breast (where the port is... oops, sorry, one of those words popped in here) until it was time to match it to the reconstructed left one. This would be a while after the initial surgery. Based on that information, he said that he'd take the port out during the mastectomy and, I'm sorry I don't remember the word but basically he'd 'freshen' the wound so that it would heal normally after the surgery to remove the port.

Tuesday, 5-Aug-2008:
Ran errands today in pursuit of long term disability. What seems odd to us is that they want us to fill out LTD forms 3 months in advance to start LTD at the 6 month mark. Initially we weren't even sure the treatment would last 6 months or more so held off. Now that we are filling it out, we find out that we are required by Cigna to apply for Social Security LTD benefits... however, Social Security doesn't give benefits until a year out. Thus, Cigna is requiring that you pursue LTD 9 months before you can get it (from Social Security). Oy Vey!

Having said that, it does make some sense. Basically, to defray the cost of Long Term Disability, the insurance company requests any benefits you get from Social Security... then they just handle cutting you a check. Now, SS won't kick in until the year mark, so, the insurance agency will cover it fully until then.

Wednesday, 6-Aug-2008
Kris is fighting with the LTD paperwork. Amazing how frustrating, detailed and generaly ponderous this process is. They are asking for the names of the prescriptions she's on for her treatment, when each procedure (or at least many of her procedures) was performed. Then, 2 hours after starting the paperwork (online), the form disappeared... My take on this is that they really want to dissinsent folks from using this benefit. Did I mention that studies are investigating the relationship to stress and triple negative breast cancer (the kind Kris has). Ie: there is evidence that says stress helps the cancer to grow... seems criminal to have paperwork that is designed to be stressful for a patient of this disease, doesn't it?