Take off

Iva and Tony left today. They should be in Macedonia tomorrow. They are staying there for three weeks. Enjoy them, Macedonia!

Postponed

Iva's surgery has been postponed until late July. The surgeon has agreed to do both lungs in a single surgery, which is riskier, but cheaper.

So now Iva is going back to Macedonia to get her passport renewed. This will also get her out of the US before her current visa expires. In the mean time, we have to negotiate a price for the surgery.

Why does everything have to be so fucking hard and complicated?

Rejected

Iva has been rejected for financial assistance from the Methodist Hospital. No surgery this week. We have some ideas, but it is hard to find energy to try.

Nothing Yet

No decision from Methodist yet. Boo!

Big garage sale today with our awesome neighbors. Made several hundred dollars for Iva. Yay!

Tomorrow

We met with the financial counselor today at The Methodist Hospital. He is going to present Iva's case to the charity board and we should have a decision tomorrow. It feels as if her life is being decided. Not the most comfortable of feelings.

Tomorrow!

Week Delay

This is what a $125 past due bill looks like. I like the threatening tone. Its really ingenious. One almost gets the sense that there is actually something they can do to Iva if she doesn't pay. According to this notice, they just can't figure out why Iva has refused to pay them. Hmmmm . . . We finally gathered the courage tonight to add up all of Iva's known outstanding bills. The grand total is only about $40,000. Add this to everything we have already paid--which is about another $180,000-- and then you start to approximate how much one year of a life is worth.

Well, onto the latest on Iva's impending surgery. She found out today that if she pays them a $10,000 deposit, they will submit her bill for their charity program. Tomorrow she is going in to give them all required documents, which includes our household income and letters of support. When considered in normal circumstances, Zoran and I make very decent money. I am forever grateful for the blessings of our jobs--what most people wouldn't give to have what we do! But, when you consider that our salaries have to support 5 adults (3 of whom have no income) and 2 kids, plus all that we have paid into her healthcare already, well hopefully, it doesn't disqualify Iva from their program.

So that is tomorrow. They have rescheduled her surgery until next Thursday to allow for time to decide if she is worthy of charity. There are three options. One, they will approve her and surgery will happen on Thursday. Two, they will miss their own deadline for a decision, and the surgery will still happen without any agreement on the bill. Third, and the least desirable, Iva will be denied and will have to agree to whatever terms they insist. One more week of agony!

Really?

We thought MD Anderson was expensive. They wanted $67,000 for the one lung surgery. No discounts, no payment plans nothing.

Enter The Methodist Hospital. They are offering a 40% discount for being a "cash" customer. They only want $65,000, plus another $3000 just for the physician.

Where do they come up with these prices? I mean, really! What more do we have to do?

Not So Fast

Well we really thought we had finally caught a break. Lord knows we could use one. And then, not surprisingly, another road block.

Iva's surgery may not happen. And as usual, money is the culprit. We thought by going to a private hospital, that they would have some sort of charity program to assist with the financing of her surgery. She has been told their foreign patient fund is depleted. Road block.

We tried to get her an American Social Security number to assist with applying with other programs. She was told she doesn't qualify to get one. Road block.

She was informed she would have to make a deposit, but no one can tell her how much the surgery will cost. She waited hours on hold. Waited hours for someone to return her call. Waded endlessly through the bureaucracy that is the American medical system. And all she knows for all her trouble, is that she will get a 40% discount and that she will have to pay an unknown portion of an unknown total amount. Road block.

Tomorrow we will have to make an appearance there to try our best to convince them that Iva deserves this chance. That this is her only chance. And that if they could just make a humane decision, rather than a business one, well, there is nothing in it for them except the peace that they did the right thing.

In the meantime, if anyone has an extra $50,000 and wants to contribute to a very worthy cause . . .

Cutting Away

There have been many theories on treating Iva's cancer. You all have shared some that you have heard of or read about. The doctor's in Austria had suggested a plan of treatment. MD Anderson, here in America, suggested another. Iva's own family members each has his or her own idea about what the next best thing to do is. Sadly, we can never know for sure who to listen to or which path to chose.

BUT--this is the first chance we have had in all this time at getting Iva cancer-free. Next Thursday she is scheduled to have her right lung operated on to remove any and all masses. Two weeks later on June 30th, she is having the left lung done. She has no other known metastases. As we found out earlier this week, the spine lesion is not a tumor. Having metastatic disease to only one body system (the respiratory) is way better than having it in two.

And why not Iva? Why is she not worthy of this miracle that we have all prayed for so hard this last year and half? She doesn't have the courage to hope for it, but I do. And why not? What do we lose? We have had each other each and every day for the last 14 months. That has been an amazing blessing. Looking back at how far Iva has come--the mere fact that getting her here when we did was an amazing feat! What obstacles! It is not too late to proclaim full victory--to cut away all this evilness from her body and her spirit. It is not too late for Iva to heal herself. To start seeing what she has accomplished, rather than what she has lost. To see what blessings she has, rather than what she has been burdened with. To start rejoicing and embracing the day, rather than cowering in fear of what the day may bring.

Goodish News

Iva met with the spine surgeon this morning. He looked at her scans and informed her that the spot on her L1 vertebra is not a metastasis! It is an hemangioma, not cancer! Sweet day.

Tomorrow is back to the thoracic surgeon to see if last Friday's CT scan supports surgery. If her lung tumors are stable (no progression since the prior scans), then surgery will be scheduled. She has been off chemo for about 2 months now, so we will see.

More to come tomorrow . . .

Fatigue

Iva got news from MD Anderson. "We are not sure," was the general consensus. "Let's wait until you get worse." Dissatisfied with that line of reasoning, Iva called the oncologist back and asked why he didn't feel being more aggressive was a good next move. He ultimately set her up to see the thoracic surgeon, the guy that could possibly remove her lung metastases. We met with him on Tues. He has her scheduled for surgery on Wednesday, June 9th. He wants to resect the right lower lobe of her lung where her largest tumor is--it's about 1 cm in size. He would then work around the rest of her lung, squishing as he went, looking for additional tumors. He calls it "palpating," but squishing is a much better description, don't you think? He would then place a chest tube in to reinflate her left lung, which still remains partially collapsed even after her last surgery. If it reinflates, he will be able to better see if there is any tumors there--again by employing the sophisticated squishing method. However, the left lung surgery would be done at a later date. It all sounded very good and promising, but at the cost of nearly $70,000 for just the one surgery, we can't afford him. So we asked if he knew of anyone else qualified to perform such an operation. He recommended someone and Iva saw her yesterday. She is at the Methodist Hospital here in Houston, which is a private hospital and therefore, has a charity program. We are super hopeful that they will not only cost less, but also that Iva can get approved for financial assistance with them. The Methodist Hospital also has a spine surgeon she is consulting with on Wednesday next week to see if he can perform the operation on the spine tumor. It is not a confirmed tumor, but they think it should be scheduled for removal, just in case.

All of this is very good, but unfortunately, no one is celebrating. Tension is high. We have all been dealing with our little bits of this tragedy for well over a year now. Fatigue is setting in.