Half a million dollars

 My oncologist started me on a new medication on Friday. It's a hormone blocker and if I tolerate it well, I will be on it a minimum of five years because my cancer was estrogen and progesterone receptive positive, meaning it feeds off hormones. I went to pick up my new medication from the pharmacy on Saturday, paid my $5 co-pay and noticed on the bag that it said my insurance had saved me $194.99. WOW!! $200 a month for one medication! That is a lot of money! That got me wondering how much my other medications run, so I started looking. $200 for one. $50 for another. One I can't tell until I refill it. Then I decided to look up the monthly Lupron injection I have to get. $1,060. $1,060!!! $1,060 a month so that I can then take my $200 an month prescription, but the injection gives me such severe migraines that I have to take another prescription that probably runs another couple hundred dollars (that's the one I don't have an exact figure on until I refill it). As these insane numbers swarmed before my eyes, I began to wonder why. Why me? Why was I so fortunate? Why did God decide that my life was worth saving? Before I went up to Stanford, when I was still having spasms, I called my insurance company and asked them how much they had paid out to date this year. Our plan has a two million dollar maximum per person and I wanted to make sure I wasn't getting close, because I didn't know if that was the maximum amount billed to the insurance or the maximum amount the insurance actually paid out. Thankfully, it was the amount they paid out, and I asked the customer service rep I was speaking to how much they had paid out in on my account this year. "Around $300,000" she said. $300,000. $300,000. And that was before a three day stay at Stanford's epilepsy center, before Botox treatments, before five years of monthly Lupron injections at $1,060 a pop, before monthly prescriptions at $200+/mth. We haven't yet received the bill for Stanford, the Botox treatments and my latest surgery at Memorial, but I would not be surprised if the insurance ends up paying out near half a million by the end of the year on my bills alone.

Our family sponsors a child in India. His name is Jit. According to the information we were given, the average family in his area lives on about $25 a month. In one year, our insurance company will have paid the equivalent of 20,000 months of living expenses for an entire family in India just to keep me alive and well! Somehow that doesn't seem quite right, and yet...Life isn't fair. Some are born to poverty and some are born to riches. Some are born healthy and some are born sick. Some are born into love and some are born into hurt and pain. I could turn down all future care, but it wouldn't help anyone else one iota. No one else would receive the care I would be turning down. I couldn't trade my life for the livelihood of 100 Indian families over 17 years. I can't trade my medical care for routine vaccinations needed around the world, BUT what I can do is realize the price that was paid for my life. Sometimes, we as Christians claim that we know a price was paid for our lives, but we don't live like it. If we truly believed that the very Son of God bought us with His own blood, we wouldn't live the way we do. I'm sorry but we wouldn't. If you really believed that you were worth that, if you believed that you had a price tag that said DIVINE BLOOD on it, you wouldn't sit on the couch and waste the gifts you were given like you do! You were given ONE life. ONE. What are you doing with it?? I will be honest with you. I was a hypocrite too. I wasted a lot of hours, a lot of opportunities and a lot of talent in my pre-cancer days, but I'm going to do everything within my power to make up for that now. Half a million dollars were paid in one year alone to keep me alive. Millions of people across the planet aren't so lucky. Since I've been given a second chance, I'm going to make the most of it. I don't know exactly what it's going to look like, but I want to make the most of every minute.

One small part of my effort to pay it forward includes collecting blankets to hand out to the homeless. Not only am I blessed to be alive and fighting my cancer, I am warm and dry during the process. Not everyone has that blessing, so I'd like to come alongside Church in the Park's efforts in Modesto and collect blankets to give to them to pass out in December. If you have blankets or funds you would like to donate to this, let me know. Thanks!

A short update

Jason left this morning to go back to Riverside for a week. He'll be back for three days for Thanksgiving, then head back down for a week. While we will definitely miss him, we have really appreciated the flexibility his employer has given him to be home while I recuperated from surgery. I'm not quite 100% yet, but definitely close enough. I went for a very brisk walk this morning and came back without much discomfort, so I know I'm nearing full recovery. Yay! It's only been 9 days since my surgery but it feels like much longer. I've really missed being able to get out there and walk. My ability to exercise or not makes a huge difference in my mental health, so the combination of it getting dark earlier, being in pain and not being able to exercise has made for a gloomy me lately.
My transition to life without Facebook has been interesting. I had definitely turned it into a lifestyle! I often think of life occurrences in terms of Facebook posts, so it's a little odd not to have "someone" to share every little detail of my day with, but at the same time, I'm finding myself sharing the more amusing details with actual individuals, which prompts a dialogue, which makes it more interesting than a mere post on Facebook that gets a few thumbs up a few hours down the road. It's definitely a different way of doing life and it takes some adjusting, but it's good for me, at least for now.
Speaking of transitions, I'm looking forward to entering the work force again. I have too much of a love for people to be at home alone for hours on end. I need to be out and about, doing something with myself. Because we have a trip to Oregon coming up in a month, I am going to wait until January to begin employment, but I'm starting to put feelers out now, so if anyone knows of a need for a server, hostess, cashier, or front office person, give me a holler.
That about does it for today's update. I will leave you with the verse that stuck out to me in my reading this morning:

"Wait patiently for the Lord. Be brave and courageous. Yes, wait patiently for the Lord." Psalms 27:14 NLT

That's a wrap!

I had my implant surgery on Monday. It was a day surgery, in and out within seven hours. The pain wasn't anything huge, although I did find it hard to shake the fatigue for a couple days.
Each day post surgery, I found myself struggling more and more with my moods. Honestly, it was scaring me. I thought maybe the anesthesia had messed up my brain chemistry or something because I just felt really, really down and if I could snap out of it, it was only briefly and then I would come crashing down again. This morning, three days post surgery, I was in the shower when my entire cancer journey came galloping through my brain, starting with the day I stood at the desk scheduling my biopsy, back to when the doctor found the lump, forward to when we received my positive cancer diagnosis, to the day we shaved my head, to the nerves of the first chemo treatment, to the dread of doing the second treatment without Jason, to the overwhelming nausea of each treatment, to the whooshing sound and severe pain upon awakening from my surgeries to the mysterious spasms that took over my body. As I sat there in the shower, I sobbed and sobbed and sobbed and sobbed. You see, no matter how bold a face you put on, no matter how silver a lining you see as you walk the journey, cancer is AWFUL! It is HARD! It is EXCRUCIATING! We as survivors have a choice on whether we chose to dwell on that or not, but to discount it would be a lie.
I trust that God knew what He was doing when He set me on this path and I know that I have grown as a result, but I do hope that I never have to walk this road again. Today, I am packing away my cancer cards, books, etc. I will be sorting through my hats and scarves, giving away most of them and keeping a couple that I might still want to wear. This part of my journey through life is over and I honestly can say: "It's about time!"