It was the most wonderful time of the year!

What breast cancer treatments cost...so far

I was just looking through my medical claims for 2012.  It was very interesting to see what all these breast cancer treatments have cost over the last six months.  Here's a little recap:

I had my annual mammogram on 6/20/2012 and our insurance paid the $284 for the preventative care annual exam.  On 6/24/2012 I had the ambulance ride with the Meniere's disease vertigo attack and spent a couple hours in the hospital getting various tests done to figure out what happened.  I got my breast cancer diagnosis on 7/2/2012.  From that point until my last target therapy treatment on 12/26/2012 all my medical costs for 2012 come to $190,561.20.  Our health insurance contractual agreement meant that our insurance actually paid $108,021.39 of that amount and our out of pocket deductible was $4,125.00.  $1,125 was paid my Rick's employer as a benefit and we paid $3,000 ourselves through our HSA (health saving account) for 2012.  We'll pay that same amount for 2013.  We would be bankrupt if we wouldn't have had medical insurance at this point.  And we're not done yet with breast cancer treatments.  Radiation treatments started last Monday.  I wonder what that will cost?  Chemo turned out to be about $10,000 for each of the six treatments or a total of $120,000 before the contractual adjustment.  The Hercepton that I will be receiving every three weeks for a year costs about $5,000 for each injection (before the adjustment.)  The shot of Neulasta after east chemo treatment that helped stimulate bone marrow growth was about $4,000 for one shot (before the adjustment.)

What is interesting to me is that the DRUGS cost by far the most.  More than the doctor bills and more than the hospital bills.  Even after treatment, preventative care and watch care are going to cost plenty the rest of my life.  The surgeon told me I will need an MRI every year and other tests to watch and see that all is well and that the cancer doesn't come back.
I'm thankful for a husband who has a good job with good medical benefits, I'm thankful for health insurance and for contractual agreements.  I'm thankful for modern medicine and I'm thankful for caring professionals who have seen me through all of these treatments over the last six months.  I've met some wonderful, caring, competent people along the way and I appreciate the medical insurance provider whose representatives have answered my questions and helped me understand the claims and billing information.

New happenings in our valley!

#1 - we now have heavy rail access from Provo/Orem in to Salt Lake City.  Hooray!  FrontRunner is up and going.  We haven't ridden it yet, but look forward to taking the train to SLC.




#2 - we now have our own outlet mall at Traverse Mountain (at the point of the mountain between Provo and Salt Lake City)  Hooray!  An outlet mall closer to home. Check on the link to see the stores that are now open.

#3 - the I-15 corridor major upgrade finished in December 2012.  Hooray!  It is a major improvement and makes getting around so much easier.  It's lovely to have five or six lanes to drive in on the freeway instead of three.  I've got to hand it to the engineers of the freeway expansion.  They did an amazing job of widening a major freeway with very few closures and did the majority of it while the freeway remained open over three years.  We may have become impatient with the orange cones, delays and other nuisances, but it was worth it.  It's a great improvement for our valley!

I-15 CORE Construction Is Now Complete

The Utah County I-15 Corridor Expansion (I-15 CORE) is now complete. Construction on the project was finished in an unprecedented 35 months, making it the fastest billion-dollar public highway project ever built in the United States.
I-15 CORE reconstructed 24 miles of freeway from Lehi to Spanish Fork. The project widened the freeway by two lanes in each direction; replaced the original asphalt with new 40-year concrete pavement; extended the Express Lane from Lehi Main Street to Spanish Fork; and rebuilt or replaced 63 bridges and 10 freeway interchanges.
During construction, the I-15 CORE project achieved several notable milestones:

• Moved the Sam White Bridge — the longest two-span bridge to be moved by self-propelled modular transporters (SPMTs) in the Western Hemisphere — into place over I-15 in one night
• Constructed a new continuous flow intersection (CFI) — the first of its kind in Utah County — at University Parkway and Sandhill Road to reduce congestion at one of the busiest intersections in the county
• Constructed a new diverging diamond interchange (DDI) at 500 East in American Fork — the third DDI completed in Utah County
• Completed more than 90 percent of I-15 closures and restrictions during overnight hours to reduce inconvenience to the public
• Implemented lane splits to keep existing travel lanes open as much as possible while paving continued in the middle of the freeway
• Installed advanced traffic management system (ATMS) devices including 93 sensors, 36 cameras, 22 ramp meters and four permanent variable message signs to help UDOT engineers monitor traffic, respond to incidents and ensure the transportation system functions as efficiently as possible to keep traffic moving

Chemo # 6 - por fin!

 It's over!  December 5 was the day of my last harsh chemo treatments!  My sister Janet went with me to the chemo clinic and stayed with me the whole five hours while we saw Dr. Wallentine and I then received the two chemo drugs Taxotere & Carboplatin and the target therapy drug Herception, with the wonder  anti-nausea drug Aloxi, steroids and Benadryl mixed in for good measure before hand.  Rick came towards the end as well and saw me through this last leg of a very long journey.  Then is was home to rest and enjoy a few days while the anti-nausea drugs and steroids were working their magic at keeping me mostly nausea free.

Two days after treatment, I said goodbye to dear sister Janet who had stayed four and a half days and helped me in every way possible get my house ready for our family to come for Christmas and give me much needed moral support.  The rashes were starting to set in as she was leaving, but I couldn't thank her enough for taking time from her busy December to come and give us a hand up.  It was an act of love and service never to be forgotten. She and her family worked together to make our December a special time for our family and we love them all so much for all they did for us.

 After the anti-nausea drugs wore off, the nausea started to set in.  I went to the clinic two more times to get more fluids and to try and stay on top of the nausea with Aloxi.  It would work for a few days and then I'd be back feeling terrible again.  This went on for about three weeks.  It just gets a grip on you and won't let go.  It's impossible to eat much of anything.  Maybe some potatoes or pasta or about 15 gallons of chicken noodle soup eaten over the course of treatment.  Nothing looks good, tastes good, smells good, is good. I've lost 15 pounds since this all started.  Not a recommended diet plan to say the least.

I had a very bad time with rashes and swelling this time.  The rashes appeared on my hands each time and grew larger with each treatment, crawling up my arms, feet and completely taking over my knees for some reason.  It was hot to the touch and painful when put in water, but didn't itch.  When the redness receded, it left my skin brown like a very good sun tan.  It's weird now to have brown hands, feet and knees and have white skin everywhere else.  Weird. The swelling got really bad in my left leg and foot.  Dr. W. ordered a sonogram to rule out a blood clot in that leg.  There was none.  Apparently because I broke the femur of this leg when I was 20 it caused vascular difficulties that made my left foot swell and not my right.  At one point I was probably carrying about 5-10 extra pounds of fluid in that leg which made it very, very uncomfortable.

My fingernails started to lift off the nail bed.  They aren't attached at the top and I'll probably lose three or four on each hand.  First it would turn red under the nail, then white, then start to lift off. 
When I went back to the clinic on December 26 to get my three week dose of Herception (which will continue every three weeks for a year, ending in August) Dr. Wallentine told me that I had had every side effect it is possible to have over the course of treatment.  Great.  I'm too old to be made infertile by these devil drugs, but I'm sure I would have been had I been younger.  He also ordered an echo-cardiogram to make sure my heart isn't being damaged by the Herception.  So far so good. 

Anyway dear readers, I made it through!!!!!  I'm still standing!!!!  I'm hopefully cancer free now and forever.  How could cancer survive this onslaught of poison that killed off every hair of my body (well except my eyebrows that somehow survived), killed my digestive system, altered my eye sight, changed my....well you get the idea.  See the chart above.
Through it all I'm grateful.  Grateful for family and dear friends who saw me through to the end.  To a husband who was by my side through thick and a lot of very, very thin experiences.  I'm grateful for prayer, priesthood blessings, temple prayer rolls and kind and thoughtful people who lifted our load.  I'm just grateful to be done and for what I learned through the process. More on that later.  Now on with LIFE!