Cancer rant about fellow Metastatic Survivors :(

What a great day!  I finished up work for the rest of the year and got to have dinner with Clint and my good friend, Joe Wheat.  I have to brag on Joe before I get into my blog entry.  We were celebrating Joe's newly aquired PhD status.  Now he's a "double doctor"!  LOL!  Congrats, Joe.  We are so proud of you.


Now we are back at home relaxing.  I was hoping to catch a new episode of our new favorite TV show REVENGE, but no joy... no new episodes until January.  It's killing me trying to figure out who Tyler shoots.  I'm thinking it's faux Amanda (not the real one, aka Emily).  Anyway, won't get an answer for 2 more weeks.  Ugh!


So here I sit with my blog.  I know I told you guys I would be back quickly to talk about financial controversy!  So here it goes...


Every now and then I go peruse a breast cancer message board on breastcancer.org specifically for metastatic/stage IV BC survivors.  I go there mainly to read about the various treatments women are on, etc.  Many times there are threads regarding financial and work related issues.  This is where I get a little frustrated with some of my fellow survivors.  Many of them find out they are Stage IV and immediately want to go on disability at work.  I'm not judging them, but I decided a long time ago that I would keep working until I just couldn't do it anymore.  I don't have children and I just think that I would go insane hanging out here at the house day in and day out.  I mean, what the heck would I do?  Most people who go on disability can only count on getting around 50% of their wages and then have to get on COBRA and pay higher insurance premiums.  That also doesn't sound very enticing to me.  I have great insurance and really don't pay a lot for it.  Yet another reason to keep working as long as I can.  I also really like my job.  Anyway, so keep in mind a lot of these ladies are on disability.  Then many of them decided that the "deserve" to get accelerated life insurance benefits.  Anyone familiar with this?  I find it kinda creepy.  Basically, if you have an illness deemed "terminal" and your doctor signs documents saying that you only have 6-12 months to live depending on the insurance, then you can collect your life insurance before you actually die.  Many of these ladies do this so they can pay off debt, take their families on once in a life time trips and vacations, etc.  What's weird is that these same ladies get really annoyed if people/doctors/friends of family say that they are dying, but yet turn around and make their doctors sign paperwork saying that they ARE dying!!!  I don't know about you guys, but that's just WRONG in my opinion.  


Anyway, many times I've felt like chiming in trying to convince these ladies not to go on disability until absolutely necessary or that taking accelerated life insurance benefits is just plain creepy and wrong, but I don't want to get into petty fights with them.  Just this week, though, I saw a thread entitled something along the lines of crazy, wrong fantasies with cancer.  I looked at this thread and became just so angry and sad at the same time.  A stage IV woman was really mad and angry about her situation.  She had been diagnosed Stage IV years ago and immediately decided to go on disability.  She now makes 50% of what she once made and is now on Medicare since her Cobra ran out.  She has high out of pocket costs with her medications, etc.  She also took out accelerated benefits a while back and has gone THROUGH IT ALL!  She is now broke and can't make ends meet.  She now is thinking about taking out all kinds of credit cards running them up and buying a new car with no intensions of paying it back since she is Stage IV and may die soon.  She also stated that if she continues to live and can't pay any of it back then she will just declare bankruptcy.  REALLY???!!!!!  I wonder if she realizes that even if she dies, someone has to pay that back.  It may be taxpayers, but someone pays for all that.  The lady is really angry and unhappy even though she went on trips and bought stuff with her accelerated benefit money, but still thinks that a new car and credit cards will bring her happiness.  Never mind that she is still ALIVE!  She even complained about that.  AND get this...she has only been on anti hormonals for the last few years.  That's right folks, she hasn't been on chemos in a long time but complains that the side effects from each and every anti hormonal has been so hard on her.  WOW!  I feel like I'm in heaven on an anti hormonal and Afinitor.  Yes, I have joint pain and other side effects like this lady, but it's not that bad.  


So there's my rant.  I just want to know how some of you feel about this.  Should people with "terminal" cancer get to go around and spend $ willy nilly and take out accelerated benefits?  Do we "deserve" fabulous once in a lifetime trips even if we can't afford them?  What do we "deserve" from this world or society?  I guess I'm just a raging lunatic for thinking I deserve nothing and have been blessed with so much.  Am I losing my mind?  Is anyone else frustrated, angry and annoyed at this lady and others like her?  I know I talk a lot about cancer bringing out the best in people, but I will say that it often brings out the worst as well.  I really haven't talked much about that.  I will talk about it more in future posts.  I've been meaning to blog about "Competitive Cancer in CancerLand" too!  That's a whole other topic that's pretty amusing.  


By the way, I wanted to post a pic of me and my clinical trial oncologist, Dr. Jennifer Wheler.   I have talked about my breast oncologist, Dr. Litton, but haven't written much about Wheler.  She is pretty amazing just like Litton.  I see her once a month in the main building...many times waiting 2 hours to be seen.  She is super busy trying to save those of us who need answers and treatments sooner than later.  Also, she is SINGLE (FYI for you eligible bachelors out there)!

Until next time!!!