Cancer Support

after my husband's dermatologist laughed at my request. He'd had years of having an eyelid cancer lopped off, only to return. They kept telling him it was benign. I finally went with him to the dermatologist. He said it acted like a cancer, but it wasn't a cancer. I said if it acted like a cancer, we should treat it like a cancer. I wanted a MOHS. The doctor laughed and said I should stop consulting Dr. Google.

Three months later the lesion returned, and the doctor removed it in his office again. Three months after that, I went with my husband and demanded the MOHS again. He said he could refer my husband but the insurer would probably deny it. I asked what it would cost if we had to pay for it. He said $5K. I said we'd pay for it if we had to, but we wanted the MOHS.

So this thing had been returning for 6 years, and they kept denying a referral for a MOHS over $5,000.

They finally did the MOHS, and said they'd gotten it all, but it was too late. In the years while they saved the insurer some money, the thing that only "acted" like a cancer had traveled into a lymph node, and then into his blood, and then into his spinal column.

The hospital has made a hell of a lot more than $5000 from my husband since then. Maybe that was the plan.

Please, please, if there's any doubt at all, get that MOHS. Also, ask for and read all the pathology reports. A full year before the first time I asked for the MOHS, the pathologist had recommended a full excision (the MOHS is one way to do one). The dermatologist never told us that. Instead, he waited a year and a half before finally giving my husband the referral, and that was only after the second time I demanded one.