Cost of Paying for Cancer Treatment is Sad

[foofighter]

The cost of health insurance sucks. One of my coworker was diagnosed with a form of nasal cancer; apparently it’s quite common for southeast asian people. My coworker is healthy, she eats right, never smoked and when these recurring headaches wouldn’t go away she decided to go to the doctors to have it checked out. They did the MRI and that’s when the news broke to her. She’s now going full attack on the cancer with aggressive chemo (sp?) and you can tell it’s taken it’s toll on her. She’s trying to be trooper and showing up for work only just to keep a sense of normalcy. But you can tell the treatment is having it’s affect. I pray for her and I know that she’ll pull out of this to a road towards recovery. But what troubles me is the high cost of insurance. Apparently the treatment will run in upwards of 1 million dollars…her insurance co-pay is 20% of that. So out of pocket, for her family is 200k!!! So our director thought of an idea/fundraiser of sorts to help soften the blow of having to repay this ungodly co-pay. He had those wristbands made in our company’s slogan “stick together” and in the magenta color of T-Mobile and had her name on the band as well. They ordered 500 of these bands for now, and we’re chipping in $5 a band (and then some if we’re feeling generous). It’s no 200k but it’s a start and I hope they expand this throughout our company so that she gets more support. It’s sad that anyone has to go through the fight against cancer, it sucks even more to have to pay for it for the next 30yrs…isn’t that why we have health insurance? Anyway, please keep her in your thoughts.

 

[J_Sims]

Is there an address for sending donations??

 

[spookydave]

so sorry to hear about your coworker. Sounds like you work for a company with a soul also. That's rare in this day and age it seems.
I lost my best friend to cancer. It's hard to see someone go though that let alone be the person going though it. All I can say is keep being supportive of her. She'll need it and it will mean alot.

Health care system, I don't even know where to start.

 

[foofighter]

J_Sims...nothing yet, i didnt post to jerk on your heart string and purse...just wanted to share with everyone how crappy things can be and how incredibly lucky we are.

 

[J_Sims]

It was not taken as a jerk on the either. I just know that we have a great community here at STR and some such as myself have lost family members to the big C and do not have a challenge kicking a little toward a good cause.

When there is an address available please post it and members can if they choose send in donatoins directly, without ever having to discuss it here...

Thank you:beer:

 

[foofighter]

Thanks bro...STR is a great community.

 

[FoShizzle]

it is a great community....and cancer totally sux a$$......there is perhaps nothing worse.

 

[kamaekia]

Most forms of health insurance have an annual out of pocket maximum, which is the maximum amount a person pays in a year. It is often around $3000-5000. You should have your co-worker look into that.

 

[foofighter]

i'm sure she did, she's our corporate counsel so there's no missing anything with her. I think it was the plan that she was on? I do agree with you though, 200k sounds crazy...but not unbelievable i guess in this day and age.

 

[boboso]

My wife has ovarian cancer and I am fortunate to work for a great company. The weekly cost for chemo and doctor/blodd work for my wife is around $5k per week. Please let us know how we can support... If she would like we could look into the Womens Cancer Research center at Hoag to see what assistance could be provided as well.

 

[OMR]

Thanks for sharing guys ... sometimes because we are so active and normally healthy (except for the usual crash here and there) we tend to be insulated from the killers out there... cancer being one of the big ones. When we hear stories like this, we feel sympathy and also relief that it's not us. I will keep you all in my prayers and I firmly believe that prayer works. Keep the positive thoughts... it will help win the battle.

OMR

 

[foofighter]

thanks very much for the supportive words, i will for sure pass on the well wishes to her. It's just really sad that as we call each other cousin because we just happen to share the same last name...so there's that funny bond. And seeing her go from healthy to being completely spent and you can physically see it in her face it's just devastating. If this were to happen to me or my wife i dunno what i would do.

 

[ezzyride]

I am really sorry to hear about your friend.

Certainly my best wishes for her to get thru this and she will. I lost my mom to cancer this January.

Maybe you can take some of those bands to the Blackstar ride this saturday. It would be nice to help by purchasing these bands. I know I want a few.

Gracias,