Gamma Day

It’s 3:23 am and we are on the way to St Louis. I will have another brain MRI and gamma knife treatment today, 4/15. This comes after the treatment was initially denied by my health insurance yesterday. Yes. Denied. Health Alliance sat on the prior authorization for exactly one week before denying it one day before it was scheduled. Yesterday was not a good day. It is the first day they actually made me cry about insurance since the fall of 2019 when they denied the first-choice systemic treatment my oncologist ordered.

I’m a CPA (Certified Public Accountant) and my Bachelors degree was in economics. I am the Controller of a grain cooperative. So I understand why health insurance companies make it hard for people like me to get treatment. Metastatic breast cancer in incurable. My health insurance company will spend a great deal of money on me until I die. The quicker they can make that happen, the less their expenses.

On a happier note, by the end of this week, all of my immediate family will have received the second dose of Modena. We are all celebrating that. I spent the weekend with my friend, Sara, who is also fully vaccinated. We enjoyed the Missouri Botanical Gardens, a little antiquing, and a lot of laughter. Yesterday was one of the most emotionally challenging days I’ve had in months. I’m weary, battered and broken by what life has thrown my way, to the point I don’t know what to ask of God. These are the kind of days I just cry, “God, help us.” Then I let God be God.