27 December - letter to a client
Dear (names withheld),
I started to send an e-mail response back to your e-mail but got a little carried away so have turned it into a letter. This way you will be able to focus more on the contents especially the parts about your insurance and savings.....etc....The operation was on Wednesday, 9 days after diagnosis, and on the following Friday a pathology report found there was no cancer in the lymph nodes. Wow! It felt as though a death sentence had been lifted and I feel blessed. We have felt very positive since getting that report. Maybe the cancer was removed just in time, before it started to travel around the body. We have also been advised that cancer will travel via the blood vessels, not just the lymph system, so of course there is still concern but no nearly as much as we had before.
The chemotherapy is supposed to 'sweep up' all the microscopic cancer cells that might be lurking in my body. I 'm not looking forward to this. I read about one woman's experience. She was so sick that the oncologist stopped her treatment. Later she told the oncologist that she thought she was dying and he said that if she had had another dose of chemo she would have died. He explained that his job is to give as much as possible without killing the patient. Now how reassuring is that for the next six months of my life?
I 'm hoping I won't react so badly to the poison and that I will be able to lead a relatively routine sort of life. Look at the bright side: I won't need to shave my legs or armpits....and......a Brazilian that will last for six months. right now I don't need to wear a bra - I've never liked wearing bras and am not that keen on getting a falsey but I might change my mind later.
My plan for 2007 is to lose 35 kgs. I will have lost this by July and then Richard is taking me shopping in Australia. I'll give my body the rest of the year to settle down and at the end of the year I will have breast reconstruction. This major surgery takes 6.5 hours. My operation only took 89 minutes. At this time I reckon I should throw in lipo suction for the inner thighs as well. In for a penny, in for a pound eh.
To me this surgery will represent the closing of an interesting experience in my life which I hope never raises it's ugly head again but you never know. You never have an all clear with breast cancer as you do with other sorts of cancers. The first thing I did after my diagnosis was to check how much trauma insurance I have. Guess what? It's not nearly enough! In a way I might be lucky. If I had suffered a stroke we would be in financial difficulty because we have so much leveraged/investment debt. We have enough protection to pay the interest on the loans for a couple of years which would give us time to sell the properties but ideally just paying them off would have been better. My view has always been to 'live on the edge or you are taking up too much room '. What I should have done was to have enough critical care insurance to cover a major event such as a cancer diagnosis or heart attack, stroke, etc. I didn't though. Just like my clients, I restricted the amount of cover I had because even though 1 in 3 of us will get cancer before we turn 65 I knew I wasn’t going to be one of them. Humph. By the way, 1,500 women are diagnosed with breast cancer every year in NZ. We have the second highest rate of breast cancer in the world. The USA comes in tops at 1 in 8 women getting breast cancer and NZ comes second with 1 in 10 women getting it. 600 women die from breast cancer every year.
The reason I might be lucky is that I might be able to continue to work during chemo so our income won't drop too drastically - we hope. A stroke would have been different because I would be unable to work and it would therefore be impossible to get the finance to pay for a property which is due to be paid for in March. The trauma insurance that I have will go towards significantly reducing our personal mortgage - albeit momentarily - because we were planning extensions to the house. I think diamonds would look nice on my ears so there might be a little insurance left over to get some. All the money shouldn't go to serious stuff like debt reduction.
What else might I do with the money? If I am HER- 2 positive I could use all of my trauma cover and more to pay for Herceptin. This drug has been shown to reduce the risk of cancer returning by 30%. Humph! I would prefer to reduce the mortgage and have the diamonds but at least I have the insurance money available if I need to take the drug. This is why we take trauma cover out. To cover expenses especially debt, and to provide options such as drugs and treatments not available via our public health system. Several years ago a client went to San Francisco for treatment for his prostate cancer. This treatment is now available in NZ but it wasn’t at the time our client found he had cancer.
Some women mortgage their homes or go to their families to ask for funding for Herceptin that costs $120,000 per year. This cost is for a 70kg woman. It costs more based on weight - and if the cost is the same proportion it would cost me $180,000 per year. Fortunately you only have a one year cycle of it.
Our Government doesn't pay for Herceptin but Australia, Canada and the UK do. Interesting don't you think?
If I had my medical insurance with ING then ING would pay for this medication. You have $150,000 cover per operation and if the operation only costs $15,000 you can use the difference to buy drugs that are not on the Pharmac list. As it happens I am in a group scheme with Southern Cross. It's pretty good. My mastectomy cost $10,000 and breast reconstruction will cost around $25,000. I will have to pay for the thigh liposuction. If women have mastectomies via the public health system they can have breast reconstruction at the same time they have a mastectomy but if they are like me and defer for a year they will not get it. They will be dumped off the waiting list after two years. New breasts are not a priority within our health system. There are so many other costs. Private medical insurance is very important. Do you have it? Sorry - it's easier to ask you than to read over all your notes.
Yes, I know insurance is expensive and this is why I am gentle with people. I don't want to make you poor and miserable just because of a need to have insurance but my situation would be so incredibly different if I hadn't had it. It's a wonderful peace of mind. I wish I had taken out more though. It will be a while before an insurance company will look at me now....etc....
e-mail from Larry and Fliss
Gidday Alison
How’s it going? We got back from our wee trip away yesterday. A good time visiting and catching up with everyone but its nice to be back in the little nest. We had planned today to deal to the section a bit but surprise surprise its peeing down so no chance of that. And I’ve got golf for the next 3 days so I guess the weeds will have more opportunity to bloom.....etc....
We have got a couple of books you might be interested in but they are pretty anti the conventional approach to dealing to cancer. I can send them down to you if you want to have a read. Let me know. The bloke we were talking the other day about is called Phillip Day. Check out http://www.credence.org/ It’ll be well worth a nosey I think J
And finally – enjoy your broccoli!!! And cabbage. 2 wonder foods you’ll really enjoy. Raw!! J J
Take care kiddo
Larry & Fliss
I am soooo sick of broccoli and cabbage cauliflower
Dear Larry
Glad you enjoyed Christmas. I enjoyed mine as well. My brother and his new girl friend who I like are over here. It's been nice. Still no contact from my sister.
We are working in the office - sort of. Arrived 11:30 am and will be leaving 4:30 pm. A little is a gentle way to get back into it. We are working now as we are not going on holiday and it's delightfully quiet.
Yes, I will be at work on 12 Jan. I meet with the oncologist on 11 Jan so there is a possibility that he might arrange bone and CAT scans the next day but I don't know how the system works. Maybe they will be booked for the following week. These scans wouldn't take all day so we should be able to meet before or after them. Let's make it a strong tentative meeting.
I 'm very keen to review your insurance. Since cancer came along I feel as though many of my lovely clients are underinsured and I don't feel good about it. 2007 will be the year of insurance reviews in our business. Saving for your next trip is great. It's important to achieve our goals.
Food - you would be so impressed with us. I was reading a book a friend sent me about a woman who got breast cancer but the lumps she found were diagnosed as cysts and not even biopsied. It wasn't until she was suffering excruciating back pain for months that she was finally scanned and identified as having tumours throughout her body. The back pain was because a tumour on her spine had actually fractured her spine. Her tumour in her breast was the size of her breast. See lots of people have a far worse stories than mine and I feel lucky but you never know what might turn up. Why is my stomach so big? Is it fat or is it cancer? Why does my back ache sometimes? Is is a tumour? These thoughts cross my mind but I let them go because I am highly confident my cancer has been nipped in the bud and the chemo will knock out any roving microscopic cancer cells. Of course chemo also knocks out the immune system which gives cancer the opportunity to thrive - makes you wonder doesn't it?
The author of the book ended up having a bone marrow transplant and nearly died. After this final treatment cancer was still found in her bones and she was sent home to die. Then she visited a nutritionist who gave her the broccoli etc. to eat and within five weeks there was no trace of cancer. Seems unbelievable when you hear these stories but reading the book is quite convincing and logical. It's full of quotes going back to Hippocrates about we are what we eat and the best way to stay healthy is to eat healthy foods - duh! Trouble is the majority of us, excluding you two, are pretty clueless about what healthy foods really are. I still reckon Pavlova should feature somewhere in this category.
So the book is about starving the cancer and the best way to do that is to have an alkaline diet and eat lots of raw broccoli and cabbage. Surprise
Richard and I are going to go on a 'give our liver a rest' diet. This is a juice diet for two weeks good heavens. The book explains how it works. Also explains the importance of colon irrigation because there is no point in getting toxins out of cells if they get to the bowel and get stuck there because the bowel is clogged up. We are going to be colonically irrigated. Now here's a new experience for Richard. I had an enema 34 years ago when I was about to give birth to my son.
Hope you are proud of us. I'm also looking to buy a water distiller. We might become more health conscious than you and Fliss but that's hard to imagine. It's a right bugger that French dressing is acidic because the salad you made was just 'too' healthy for my palate.
Anyway, makes sense don't you think to be as healthy as possible prior to starting chemo and to get the liver and other organs as healthy as possible prior to bombarding them with the toxins they are about to be assaulted with. Part of me thinks maybe I should stay unhealthy until after chemo as it might be too much of a shock for a healthy liver to get a high and prolonged dose of toxins compared to one that's already probably miserable but that's rather sick logic. I 'm sure healthy is better.
Yes please, I would like to read the books you have. I'll also check out Mr P Day.
Looking forward heaps to seeing you on 12 Jan. You are always welcome to stay at our house. We will have plenty of broccoli available.
Love A
+64 4 471 0662 
