Cancer Support

My wife is going through another bout with cancer right now that will likely take her life. MAybe sooner,maybe later, don't know yet.
What we know is we are dealing with extension of life, not a cure. We have insurance, albeit only catastophic, but this is a catastrophy.

9 yrs ago she got breast cancer, had surgery, and has had nine yrs of good life. Since then, our insurance costs have skyrocketed.

We are currently paying $25,000/yr in premiums! Regular people just can't afford premiums like that. I thnk the intention was to price us out of the market so they would not have to cover her any longer. But, we paid...and paid...and paid. The federal high-risk insurance program requires one to have been uninsured for six months before they are eligilble for enrollment, and to have been denied coverage by other insurance companies. No other insurance companies are willing to cover us, but our current insurance cannot drop us (thanks to HCR), but they would in a heartbeat, if they could.

So, we were considering taking the chance of dropping coverage for six months in order to get on the federal plan, since it has been nine yrs since the breast cancer. That would have cut our premium costs almost in half. HAd we done that, we would have been screwed. She now has cancer again with multiple mets on her spine, multiple mets on her liver, mets in her lungs, kidneys, and colon, and maybe her brain (no results back on that yet).

The prognosis isn't good, but there are good treatments to extend her life.....maybe for months, and who knows, we might get a yr or two.

I can't say what I would do in your situation, mainly because you don't know for sure what your are dealing with. It might be something totally curable or fixable. Blood scares us all, but damn near everything in our body has blood in it or around it.

I don't know if there's anything in our story you can use in your article, but feel free if there is.

Good luck to you friend.