Update October 17, 2008

I thought I would give a quick update on John's condition. Since the third week of radiation, he has felt really sick. It seems to me that he has not gained ground. Today he was a little bit better in the early part of the day but, by around 6 PM he was really sick again. He gets very cold, has hiccups and feels nausea. I give him meds to help with some of the symptoms and sometimes they work. I have talked to some of the doctors and have been told that it is not unusual for him to be so sick since he has had such intensive treatment.

Our plans at this time, are to go to Dallas on Thursday for a consultation, with a surgeon at Medical City. This is a hospital that I am not familiar with and have only learned about it on the internet. We will see a Dr. Gogel who seems very cordial over the telephone. John's niece Claudette, will pick us up at the airport, transport us to the doctor and hospital. I will tour the hospital while we are there. We will fly home at 5PM and be back in the same day. I have concerns about how John will tolerate this trip and I am beginning to wonder if he can make it. We still have a week so, hopefully he will gain a little more strength. I know he will be wiped out when we get home.

I learned tonight that John's daughter-in-law, Harriett will be having surgery for breast cancer on the 22nd. She and Jeff live in Iowa and will be going to Mayo up North.

We have had a bit of a change. We will not be working with Dr. Ronaghan as a follow up surgeon in Lubbock. It is a long story but, let's just say that she was not the best choice for us. According to the doctor in Dallas and Dr. Bill Williams (the Gastro doc) we don't really need a follow up doctor here. Dr. Gogel told me that he would not release John if there was any chance of complications. Dr. Williams told me that if there were complications, John would go to the ER here and be stabilized. He would then be transported back to Dallas. That makes sense to us.

There are many stories that I could tell but honestly, they are not very happy stories and I don't want to write about them. I just wanted you all to know that we are hanging in here and have a game plan for next week.

Dr. Williams told me today that he was sending in some papers to try to get Scott and White to be an option. He has pushed us in that direction for surgery from the beginning. I don't think that will work because of the insurance issues.

I just want to give a heads up to our friends and family that are Medicare age. Beware of purchasing a Medicare REPLACEMENT policy. They are sometimes presented as a SUPPLEMENTAL policy. Just trust me on this one. Use Medicare A & B, get a D plan and then a supplemental policy to pay for what Medicare does not cover. What is very interesting is, many doctors do not even know about the replacement policies. What I do know is that many hospitals that used to accept them are changing policy and not accepting them. If you have this type of policy, you very likely will find that your choices are extremely limited. You can get out of them but, you have to wait until November 15 to request the change and it won't go in to effect until the first of the year. I don't think you want the 5 volume version on how I learned this. I did learn that this is becoming a huge problem for people all over the country.

Love,

Shere