Not very good news in this long overdue update
I know it has been a really long time since I have had anything to say over here. There are a lot of reasons for that, but ultimately they're all just excuses. I wanted to update my friends here, as to what is currently going on with my life though.
I started feeling pretty bad a week or so ago. I was tired all the time, and I had some abdominal discomfort sometimes with back pain. I was mostly just pushing through. I figured I had some reasonably tolerable strain of flu or something. Wednesday evening, things changed. My mom recently had a total hip replacement and friends from church have been bringing over meals. I went out to meet one of them and carry the food in the house, and was so short of breath when I got back inside that I couldn't speak. Mom thought I should go to the ER, so I did. Shortness of breath scares me, has since I was a kid and had severe asthma.
At the hospital, amongst a slew of other tests, my doctor ordered a chest x-ray. The chest x-ray revealed fluid on the lung, which led to an order for an abdominal and chest CT scan. That showed a large mass on my ovary. I was admitted to the hospital, and after several diagnostic tests, it has been determined that I almost certainly have ovarian cancer.
I have a trip to KU Med center in the near future, for a consultation with a gynecological oncologist, and follow-up surgery. I also probably have chemotherapy in my future. My doctors have all been positive thus far, saying that given my age and the advancements made in treatment, my prognosis is fairly good.
I'm mostly feeling pretty positive right now. Honestly my biggest concern right now is financial. I don't have insurance (not elegible for ACA, b/c my employer provides insurance. Didn't get the insurance when I hit my 90 days because it was very close to the end of the year, and it seemed like a pretty good risk. Chances were good that I wouldn't even use my deductible in that time. So the earliest that I might have insurance is January. Thanks to the ACA, I shouldn't have a waiting period before they start paying for my treatment, but January is still a long way off. Also, I don't qualify for FMLA because I haven't been on the job a year. Which means that I can take a six-week personal leave of absence, one and only one in a calendar year. I'll need every bit of that for when I have surgery, so I'm going to try to work up until the day of surgery. It's a good thing that I work nights because it will allow me to go to any medical appointments during the day. Not sure when I'm going to sleep, but I'll figure something out. I don't have any other options. I may have short-term disability insurance through my work, and I suspect that it will carry on even past the end of my employment if I opt to voluntarily terminate employment instead of wait until I point out, but I'm not 100% sure. Need to talk to HR about that. Either way, if I have to miss more than 6 weeks of work before January, I won't have insurance at all. I'm really stressing about the financial stuff, even more than the medical stuff right now. I know I'll have a roof over my head and food in my belly (because I live with my parents and they won't kick me out or let me starve, just because I lost my job), but I won't be able to make my car payment. I've always paid for internet, and it's seriously not in my parents budget, so I might lose the internet which is a big blow for me. I'm just stressed.
Thoughts, prayers, positive energy, whatever you've got, I'd love it if you sent it my way. Love you all.
Thanks.
This entry was originally posted at http://delwyn-cole.dreamwidth.org/108817.html. Please comment there using OpenID.
I started feeling pretty bad a week or so ago. I was tired all the time, and I had some abdominal discomfort sometimes with back pain. I was mostly just pushing through. I figured I had some reasonably tolerable strain of flu or something. Wednesday evening, things changed. My mom recently had a total hip replacement and friends from church have been bringing over meals. I went out to meet one of them and carry the food in the house, and was so short of breath when I got back inside that I couldn't speak. Mom thought I should go to the ER, so I did. Shortness of breath scares me, has since I was a kid and had severe asthma.
At the hospital, amongst a slew of other tests, my doctor ordered a chest x-ray. The chest x-ray revealed fluid on the lung, which led to an order for an abdominal and chest CT scan. That showed a large mass on my ovary. I was admitted to the hospital, and after several diagnostic tests, it has been determined that I almost certainly have ovarian cancer.
I have a trip to KU Med center in the near future, for a consultation with a gynecological oncologist, and follow-up surgery. I also probably have chemotherapy in my future. My doctors have all been positive thus far, saying that given my age and the advancements made in treatment, my prognosis is fairly good.
I'm mostly feeling pretty positive right now. Honestly my biggest concern right now is financial. I don't have insurance (not elegible for ACA, b/c my employer provides insurance. Didn't get the insurance when I hit my 90 days because it was very close to the end of the year, and it seemed like a pretty good risk. Chances were good that I wouldn't even use my deductible in that time. So the earliest that I might have insurance is January. Thanks to the ACA, I shouldn't have a waiting period before they start paying for my treatment, but January is still a long way off. Also, I don't qualify for FMLA because I haven't been on the job a year. Which means that I can take a six-week personal leave of absence, one and only one in a calendar year. I'll need every bit of that for when I have surgery, so I'm going to try to work up until the day of surgery. It's a good thing that I work nights because it will allow me to go to any medical appointments during the day. Not sure when I'm going to sleep, but I'll figure something out. I don't have any other options. I may have short-term disability insurance through my work, and I suspect that it will carry on even past the end of my employment if I opt to voluntarily terminate employment instead of wait until I point out, but I'm not 100% sure. Need to talk to HR about that. Either way, if I have to miss more than 6 weeks of work before January, I won't have insurance at all. I'm really stressing about the financial stuff, even more than the medical stuff right now. I know I'll have a roof over my head and food in my belly (because I live with my parents and they won't kick me out or let me starve, just because I lost my job), but I won't be able to make my car payment. I've always paid for internet, and it's seriously not in my parents budget, so I might lose the internet which is a big blow for me. I'm just stressed.
Thoughts, prayers, positive energy, whatever you've got, I'd love it if you sent it my way. Love you all.
Thanks.
This entry was originally posted at http://delwyn-cole.dreamwidth.org/108817.html. Please comment there using OpenID.