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Family and Friends,
Sorry it's been 10 days since my last post. Things here have been hectic but good. The good news first - Bob has been doing fantastic on his blood counts - White blood and platlets are back in normal ranges and his hemoglobin is at 9.6 which is pretty high for him. Bob has been very tired and spends most days sleeping on the couch. We are working with his doctor on tweaking his pain medication which causes him to twitch -especially at night when he gets tired. They are trying to wean him off the pain patches first. Bob is still having issues with his tracheotomy site. At one point it looked like it was getting better, then we decided it would be a good idea put neosporin on it, and now it's getting worse. While Bob is in the hospital next Monday for his next round of chemo, they are going to have the surgeon look at it. I don't know how well that's going to go seeing as Bob won't let them look up his nose to get to his throat, but we'll see.
I'm still fighting for Bob to get long term disability. They have approved it finally after a month, but won't disperse until I get a letter from one of his doctors from 2008 stating he was receiving muscle relaxers for his back pain and not for cancer. It's just ridiculous. In addition, I received a phone call last week from Bob's work advising me that they laid off Bob. THANK GOD my company offers domestic partner medical and dental benefits, or Bob would be screwed. Cobra wanted almost $600 a month for medical alone. In addition, Bob has racked up over $1,000,000 in medical costs (yep, that's a Million with a capital M!) It's pretty screwed up- the insurance company tells you that you have a $5k co-pay, but then once you've reached that then they tell you they'll only pay 90%. So Bob's portion of the medical bills for the last 4 months is $100,000 out of pocket. Nice. I think we're better off living in Canada or Switzerland or something, but Bob won't have any of that. Sorry for the complaining, but it gets very frustrating fighting with these companies. At least Bob has Aetna now. I'm hoping they are much better.
Please continue to keep Bob in your thoughts and prayers. He'll be in the hospital Monday October 26 and get out on Halloween afternoon - just in time to watch Christopher trick or treat!!
Love and thanks,
Michele
PS. I'll make sure to post some pictures of Bob soon.