As many of you know, my husband Garrett was diagnosed with colon cancer recently and had surgery to remove the tumor, and now we are anticipating a 6 month course of chemotherapy.

I would like to give praise and thanks to our Lord for the peace that He has given us, and we are grateful for the many people who are lifting us up to the Lord in their prayers right now.  It is funny how when something life-changing like this happens, it really does feel like you are riding a current down a stream, and not knowing where exactly you will end up.  You have to make your mind up to accept things, choose your battles, go with the flow.  I am not a go with the flow person.  I am more of a “make things harder than they have to be” kind of person.  I admit it.  But I have been working on that.  And I am getting better.  God’s not through with me yet.  Garrett on the other hand, is a laid-back kinda fellow.  In our relationship I am the bad cop, he is the good cop. I am the one who is more equipped to tackle the confrontations, to not back down, to see the problem through to it’s resolution.  He is good at letting go, but sometimes to his own peril.  You know how it is.  We each have our roles in the relationship, 2 parts  of the whole, we come together and we are complete.  It’s a beautiful thing.  LOL.

Well, anyhoo….

Before chemo can be initiated, Garrett has to have a Port-a-cath inserted.  He was handling things and felt pretty “okay” about all of it, even though next week between the two of us, we had 3 doctor appointments lined up, in 3 different areas of the Metro area, and each a good 45 minutes to an hour away.  But then last evening around supper time, someone called from one of the hospitals and told him he needed to come in there, as well on Monday as, for a pre-procedure assessment which could last up to 2 hours, on the same day when he will already have been at another doctors office for at least an hour or more.  In all that would make for potentially 5 or more hours of being out and about.  His hemoglobin is still low, so he is tiring very easily, still on pain meds, etc.  In anticipating next week, he started to feel rather like a ball-bearing inside a pinball machine.  When he got that call, I was fixing supper, the kids were both home, and I suggested that we discuss it all in the morning after a good night’s sleep and the kids had left for school. Something was going to need to give. So this morning we sat together and first talked it out with the Lord in prayer, laid out all our concerns before Him.

We then discussed between ourselves what each our concerns were, and then I went to work making lists of things we needed to address, and making the numerous phone calls that would be required.  Of course it did not take long before the first snag.  Way back a month ago (has it been a month already?) when all this started with what we thought was just a persistent stomach virus, we had contacted my own primary doctor to see if he was currently taking new patients, since Garrett’s primary doctor retired fairly recently.  When we were told my doc wouldn’t see him until he had some records from Garrett’s previous doctor, that was when he made the appointment with an intermediate care clinic (which I call “Doc-in-the-box”).  On Monday, Garrett had finally gone to his previous (retired) doctor’s office to request said records and have them sent to the new primary care doc.  Today when he made the follow-up call to see if new doc had received these, he found that indeed, no they had not.  What ensued was a very frustrating couple of phone calls to the old doc’s office, followed by an actual trip to that office, all in an effort to obtain an answer to the simple question “when can we expect these records to have been delivered to new doc”.

I’m a nurse, and before I was a nurse, I worked in a doctor’s office as a medical assistant.  I know it’s not an easy job, and most of the time those running the reception area have minimal training, and even less “pull”, yet as the frontline, they take a lot of the flak as well.   Garrett and I were both very frustrated at the unreasonable amount of persistence it was taking for us to just get an answer to a simple question.   We would attempt to explain or clarify something, and get cut off and put on hold, thus the necessity of going there in person.  Needless to say, by then neither of us had much patience left, and we learned that a third party contractor company actually copies the notes, sends the patient an invoice, and once that is PAID them, then the records are delivered to the requested recipient.  Hubby should have been given a copy of the request form he filled out and signed, but he was not.  In defense of the doctor’s office, hubby did not read the form he signed.  (Bless his pea-pickin heart).

We were tofinallly given an expected delivery date of the 18th.  But even when we called the 3rd party company, we could not ascertain where in this process, my husband’s records actually are at this point, other than to know they were accessed at first doc’s office on Tuesday, (or maybe it was Wendnesday, they weren’t sure).  ARRRGHHHH!

Voices were raised, complaints were lodged, and the issue is not entirely resolved, but I did go back in and apologize to the young ladies “behind the glass” and thank them for their help.  They too, were apologetic, and in fact, were faxing some of the records directly (as we had initially thought they were going to do).

The other things on our agenda for this day, were to contact all 3 the medical facilities involved in the current and upcoming care, for various things we needed to ask, report, and/or change.  And then to call the Insurance company to touch base and see if we could ascertain where he currently stands in “incurred debt thus far”, as well as checking the in-network status of all the many docs and facilities involved.

Well, here is the praise part:  We had asked God to coordinate things, to walk ahead of us and prepare the way, and to literally inhabit the hands and the minds of those who would be administering the care, and all aspects of that.  It became clear over the next few hours, that God has done exactly that.  Though in the midst of this world-shaking development of my husband’s cancer diagnosis and surgery, we never once picked up the phone to coordinate or check coverage, network status of the docs and facilities, etc.  You’re supposed to always do that, and I know that, but that sort of presence of mind sort of goes out the window in the midst of a big shock and doesn’t come back to roost until later.  BUT- before I could pick up the pone to make the dreaded calls, my husband’s Nurse Case Manager from the insurance company called us!.  She answered a whole bunch of our concerns.  All doctors and facilities  that we used, are in-network.  Specifics on charges are available in real-time as to the status of all filed claims, on the insurance company website.  We verified certain forms had been sent, others received, and that his short-term disability is in place with paychecks un-interrupted.

Then in the short 30 minutes between 4:30 and 5 pm on this, a Friday afternoon, I was miraculously able to speak with exactly the people I needed to speak to, in all 3 facilities/Doctor’s offices, and get our remaining questions and concerns addressed as well.  That in itself was a miracle.  That is pretty much unheard of.  Many doctor’s offices roll their phones over to the answering service early on Friday afternoon just so the staff can have a good chance of finishing up and getting out of there on time.

We began the morning overwhelmed, and finished the day blown away at God’s obvious intervention.  My husband even got a nap!  When I spoke to the pre-op assessment nurse and exlained to him all the circumstances, my husband’s poor stamina, the several scheduled appointments etc, and asked if there was any way he could do his assessment over the phone, the nurse checked into it and called me back within 5 minutes and we had that one appointment crossed off the agenda for next week.   The nurse kept his name in that appointment slot, and he will call our house at that time and do his interview over the phone.  He was able to access recent labs and EKG, etc, online from the other facilities, so he had much of what he needs already.  Praise the Lord!

The 2nd office was a refill request, again I got to speak to the nurse right off the bat, and the prescription was faxed.  Scratch off the concern about running out of his meds over the weekend. (Thank you, Lord)

Then the final issue was some concerns we needed to address to the oncologist’s office.  The nurse practitioner had actually tried to call while I was on one of the other calls, but when I called back, I was on the phone with her in very short order, and conveyed the concerns we had about starting chemo while his surgical wound was not yet healed.  We were assured that we could revisit the question of timing of the initiation of chemo after the nurse practitioner got a look at the wound on Monday.

It was a lot of time spent on the phone, which is difficult for me because I am hearing impaired, and even positionally, just holding a phone to my one better ear, results in numbness in my arm and hand after just a few minutes, but the Lord got a whole lot accomplished in it all, so it’s good!

Now my husband feels that the pressure he was feeling has been reduced significantly.  Praise the Lord for helping us navigate through the multiple hoops that are inevitably involved in crossing all the “t’s” and dotting all the “i’s”  of the healthcare system.  I know that there is a raging debate about healthcare in this nation, and how that will/may change under Obamacare.  But we are very grateful for the blessing of having medical insurance coverage, access to conscientious and caring professionals, and most of all, for God’s provision in all of it.

Next week will likely still feel a little hectic, but once we clear that hurdle, things should settle into a fairly predictable routine and we can rest in knowing God has prepared the way, and we are in good and capable hands.  I personally am humbled by the many people who exercised such professionalism and compassion and helpfulness in each interaction today.  When I was well enough that I was still able to work as an RN, that was the kind of nurse that I strived to be.  Going the extra mile, accomodating the patient, allowing for the fact they are anxious, making an effort to allay their concerns and fears and address their needs.  Following through, and following up.  So it can be all the more disheartening to me when I encounter  incompetence, negligence and carelessness or lack of professionalism at the hands of healthcare workers when “I and mine” are the ones on the receiving end.

I know that your prayers had a lot to do with how smoothly things got worked out for us today.  So thank you, as well, who are praying.  God bless you.