As we were wrapping up all of the questions, the woman said that we needed to pay the surgeon $25,000 dollars up front before he would do the surgery. Twenty five thousand dollars!!!!! Why did we have to pay the money before the surgeon even laid eyes on my husband. She might as well said a million…How outrageous!!!!
I was shocked. I said that we were under the impression that our insurance was acceptable. She proceeded to say that the surgeon did not accept any insurance payment for his services and that he required this amount of money prior to seeing any potential client.
I explained to this woman that we had no income at the moment and that we had filed bankruptcy just 2 years earlier because of the failing of our three businesses. Those two factors eliminated any borrowing of money for the procedure. We did not have anything but the insurance. She suggested that we should go to the trucking company that my husband worked for and see if they would cover the cost.
I thought how presumptuous!!!! How arrogant!!! It was clear that this doctor and woman had no clue about how hard it was to be in the trucking industry. Because of our businesses, we knew how terribly hard it was to have a bottom line in a small business. We knew that this suggestion was pure presumption and greed. There was absolutely no way any employer, even a willing employer, could do this for an individual employee. Should my husband’s employer pay this money for my husband, it would obligate itself to do the same for the every other employee or the company would be open to a discrimination suit. My husband’s company was very good to us and quite sympathetic towards him, but they could not do this and I was not about to make them feel uncomfortable by asking them for the money.
I just couldn’t believe what this surgeon was asking of us. It wasn’t just the money. The questions that this surgeon asked made it clear that he wasn’t going to accept just anyone who had PMP. He had specific health requirements i.e. age, overall good health, non smoker, (they made an exception for my husband) and the questions went on and on. These questions revealed that the surgeon had an agenda. It became clear to me that the surgeon was making careful choices in regards to on whom he would perform this procedure. He was looking for patients that would support his proposed survival rate for his FDA clinical trial.
From a medical and scientific point of view, I understood exactly what the surgeon was doing. This was the medical example for squewing results for a particular benefit. In teaching, it would be teaching towards the test scores to retain or obtain federal funding. In research and development, it would be throwing out data that didn’t support the marketability of the product for the purpose of getting it on the store shelves. It was no mystery as to why this surgeon accepted my husband as a patient. It was not because his life depended on this surgery. It was because he was young enough and strong enough to prove survival and he would not risk the FDA outcome that this surgeon was trying to meet.
Because I have been in the medical world through my nurses training, I understand the “why’s and wherefore’s”, but this was my husband, the love of my life, a father to children and the grandfather of unborn children. To this surgeon, my husband was valued but not for the reasons that really matter. The true meaning of this man’s life was without merit to the surgeon. Did I want the hands of such a callous heart holding My husband’s life? Absolutly NOT!!! This surgeon was very suspect to me and I was convinced that he lacked the kind of ethics that I required in a provider for my husband’s care.
The hope and joy that I had felt just a few days ago was beginning to plummet. I was devastated. I was angry. How dare they treat this man’s value in terms of their benefit!!!!
What we were going to do now? I called the oncologist to tell him of the conversation with the surgeon. He was shocked at how unreasonable this surgeon was in regards to the amount of money required of us. The oncologist was in disbelief that a doctor would be so audacious, yet when I stated that I believed that the DC surgeon only considered my husband because he would further the procedure’s acceptability towards the FDA goal, the oncologist seemed uncomfortable with the statement.
“Brothers to the end” was the phrase that came to my mind. I saw this stance many times while I was nursing. Doctors would not police themselves or set in judgment on positions of ethics. Even when they knew that there was a “bad apple” in their “brotherhood”, they would do nothing because they were “doctors” and they depended on each other’s silence when it came to matters of mistakes or wrongdoing. All of this just re enforced the reasons as to why I left nursing 20 years earlier. It was this very set of circumstances, this devaluation of the patient, this lack appreciation of the patient’s life in terms of quality that caused me to leave and to go into the business world. I expected this kind of “cut throat” behavior in business, but not in healthcare. While I was nursing, I loved my patients and I was a very good nurse to them, but I could do nothing about the doctors who would walk into the room, drop the bomb of diagnosis and leave in their wake the patient to a state of dispair and hopelessness. Please understand, I am aware that not all doctors are like this. In my experience I saw enough to realize that patients needed advocates. As a nurse, I could do little to be that advocate. Thank goodness, the patients know that they do have rights and it is in the patient’s best interest to be the one in charge of their own care.
But, what were we going to do? I could see my husband’s abdomen increasing at an alarming rate and we had nothing with which to fight this cancer? Our oncologist said that he was going to call the IU surgeon that he had originally mentioned to us.
In a few days, our oncologist’s nurse called to say that we had an appointment at IU Med at the end of November. Not only did the surgeon at IU Med agree to take my husband as a patient, but he agreed to accept what the insurance would pay and not charge us anymore than the insurance payment. The DC surgeon wanted $25,000, but the IU surgeon was willing to accept $4000 for a 12-hour surgery. I was so grateful. I believed that God heard our prayers and I asked that God bless this man for his kindness.
Waiting for the appointment day felt like an eternity. My husband was feeling the tumors growing and falling down to the pelvic floor. At the same time, his color was changing and his weight was starting to drop. He looked at me and asked if I thought that he would be strong enough to survive the surgery. At that moment, I didn’t know, but in faith, I looked at him and said that he would survive. I knew that the only way for him to survive a 12-hour surgery was through prayer. Prayer was the only way that my husband would stay on this earth no matter what the medical treatment. My husband was going to live because we believed in an Almight God and the people were praying.
Walking in the Valley of the Shadows 