Surprise, surprise – my chemo has not started yet. Unbelievable how messed up health insurance can be.

My local oncologist’s office has been trying to get approval for my one of my chemo drugs, Erbitux, for over a week. On Monday, my local doctor’s office called to see if I could help work things out with the insurance company from my side. I have been talking to the insurance company every day since Monday. After contacting the patient advocate today, we were told that all the paperwork was sent to the wrong department. I was told that they would get back to me within 24 hours. Hmmm.

The current plan is to start chemo in Austin on Tuesday, 5/18, pending approval. I can’t start tomorrow (Thursday) or Friday since my chemo is a 48-hr infusion. It is administered in the office for a few hours and then I go home with a pump for the remaining time. I have to come back to the office so they can unhook my pump and flush my line but they aren’t open on weekends to do that.

Meanwhile, my local doctor wants to do another baseline CT scan on Monday to see how much my second tumor has grown since the last CT scan on 4/14. This will give us a more accurate view of how the tumor is responding.

I spoke with my medical oncologist at M.D. Anderson Cancer Center about all of this delay. He was not particularly happy. He agrees with doing the additional CT scan. If the chemo is not approved and started Tuesday, I am to call him and they will get chemo going down there.

I’m not a happy camper.