HOW WILL DEATH OCCUR?

I MUST POST THIS FOR ALL TO READ..... Sutent is made by Pfizer. This company has a program where they will help you get this and MANY other meds for FREE OR LOW COST.You may have to apply BUT I know they WILL help...YOU JUST NEED TO ASK. Please DO NOT give up OR go without your meds. I found this info by Googling. PLEASE use it.

      YOU MAY CALL 1-866-706-2400

OR  www.PfizerOncology.cpm/Sutent

ALSO www.PfizerHelpfulAnswers.com

THERE IS help out there and you DO NOT need to die. I HOPE YOU DO NOT want to die. Also PLEASE contact the American Cancer Society...they should be in your phone book....they also should be able to help you with MANY things.....gas money, supplies.....even Ensure drink.

My Dad had lung cancer and he gave up AND HE DID die......PLEASE don't do that.....YOU ONLY get ONE shot at life. POSTITIVE THINKING and the want to live WILL get you far. PLEASE USE the information I provided....there IS help out there. IF there is ANYTHING else I can help you with PLEASE leave me know.

                        GOD BLESS....Hugs Sheila

SHOTGUN,

           Its me again Sheila....WILL YOU PLEASE call Pfizer YOURSELF. YOU need to be your own advocate and PROBALY the BEST thing for YOU to do IS CALL THEM YOURSELF or your wife may. My HUSBAND got the Xeloda pill FREE BUT we did the calling and the paperwork for we KNOW that our Oncologist has MANY other people to care for so she could NOT put forth the time NOR did she know all the answer they asked us. PLEASE DO NOT GIVE UP....CALL THEM. AND THEN CALL THE  American Cancer Society.

                                Hugs Sheila

Since you are on Social Security check with the Dept of Aging to see if there are any State programs to help with the costs. I use The New York State EPIC program and 4 rounds of Torisel costs me 20 dollars instead of 8,000. The amounts charged for chemo drugs and the other prescriptions for pain, and nausua are obscene. No one should be forced to choose whether to fight for thier lives or leave thier loved ones pennniless. Call the American Cancer Society they will help you .

Hello....I hope you are well. Will you PLEASE leave us know HOW YOU ARE DOING and IF you gotten any help with your meds.??

                               Hugs Sheila

On 6/30/2009 570sheila wrote:

Hello....I hope you are well. Will you PLEASE leave us know HOW YOU ARE DOING and IF you gotten any help with your meds.??

                               Hugs Sheila

Hi, Sheila.  I'm fine.  Just been busy.  Still working with Pfizer to try to get Sutent.  Having Medicare Plan D pharmacy insurance seems to have hurt me in getting Sutent but when I explained my plan is inadequate for buying Sutent (co-pay of $4,800) and had proof Humana was trying to switch me to a less expensive drug, they took interest.  Humana has now disapproved Sutent and approved something called Nexavar as a less expensive alternative. to Sutent.  I'll be back on the phone tomorrow to follow up.

Shotgun 

Hello Shotgun....

              PLEASE do NOT give up......try the American Cancer Society also. They are wonderful people and DO have lots of programs. I think IT IS AWFUL being in this day and age that we MUST fight for the medicine we NEED to survive. Its all about money AND I will say the INSURANCE COMPANIES SHOULD BE ASHAMED. Its SAD that people who are very sick and scared....HAVE TO fight for the meds that could save them and HAVE TO worry about HOW to pay for them. They want your money but could give two cents ABOUT THE PEOPLE that PAY them.....I guess they FORGOT if it wasn't for us ...THEY WOULD NOT have a company.They need customers to have a business....paying ones at that.

        I do understand that they are offering you another medicine....well you should consider it IF that is your only choice....IT MAKES ME MAD that they want you to take another med ......YOU DESERVE THE BEST....I HOPE AND PRAY that President Obama DOES something GOOD for this country and WE DO NEED CHANGES in our insurance companies.

        I will tell you our nightmare with Blue Cross.....They paid for my husbands raditation treatments....TomoTherphy which has to be set with a short CatScan. They would NOT pay for the setting of the lazer with the CatScan so he could have the raditation. Paid for 32 raditaion treatments but NOT the 32 catscans. I send them 25 dollars a month...all we can afford and they except it. Ted ALSO had 5FU in a pump...chemo treatment. They paid for the chemo BUT NOT the rental of the pump.....They also get what I can afford. We have to pay for the oncologist visits when he sees the doctor.....it went from 95 dollars to 155.....for the EXACT SAME visit at 95.

          We ARE very THANKFUL to the Roch Company for helping us with Ted's Xeloda...chemo pill. They are providing it to him FREE of any cost....If it wasn't for them.....we would have been in trouble since we could not afford to pay for it.  Shouldn't the INSURANCE company pay for it....IT IS CHEMO??????   Pill or not ....its chemo. There IS a serous problem with our insurance companies.....SOMETHING needs to be done. NO ONE should have to decide IF they can afford to have the treatmnets they NEED to survive. 

           Shotgun... Keep your head up and KEEP FIGHTING......IT WILL ALL work out. Please keep us posted...WE DO CARE ......

                                Hugs Sheila

On 7/1/2009 570sheila wrote:

Hello Shotgun....

              PLEASE do NOT give up......try the American Cancer Society also. They are wonderful people and DO have lots of programs. I think IT IS AWFUL being in this day and age that we MUST fight for the medicine we NEED to survive. Its all about money AND I will say the INSURANCE COMPANIES SHOULD BE ASHAMED. Its SAD that people who are very sick and scared....HAVE TO fight for the meds that could save them and HAVE TO worry about HOW to pay for them. They want your money but could give two cents ABOUT THE PEOPLE that PAY them.....I guess they FORGOT if it wasn't for us ...THEY WOULD NOT have a company.They need customers to have a business....paying ones at that.

        I do understand that they are offering you another medicine....well you should consider it IF that is your only choice....IT MAKES ME MAD that they want you to take another med ......YOU DESERVE THE BEST....I HOPE AND PRAY that President Obama DOES something GOOD for this country and WE DO NEED CHANGES in our insurance companies.

        I will tell you our nightmare with Blue Cross.....They paid for my husbands raditation treatments....TomoTherphy which has to be set with a short CatScan. They would NOT pay for the setting of the lazer with the CatScan so he could have the raditation. Paid for 32 raditaion treatments but NOT the 32 catscans. I send them 25 dollars a month...all we can afford and they except it. Ted ALSO had 5FU in a pump...chemo treatment. They paid for the chemo BUT NOT the rental of the pump.....They also get what I can afford. We have to pay for the oncologist visits when he sees the doctor.....it went from 95 dollars to 155.....for the EXACT SAME visit at 95.

          We ARE very THANKFUL to the Roch Company for helping us with Ted's Xeloda...chemo pill. They are providing it to him FREE of any cost....If it wasn't for them.....we would have been in trouble since we could not afford to pay for it.  Shouldn't the INSURANCE company pay for it....IT IS CHEMO??????   Pill or not ....its chemo. There IS a serous problem with our insurance companies.....SOMETHING needs to be done. NO ONE should have to decide IF they can afford to have the treatmnets they NEED to survive. 

           Shotgun... Keep your head up and KEEP FIGHTING......IT WILL ALL work out. Please keep us posted...WE DO CARE ......

                                Hugs Sheila

Thanks Sheila for all the kind words and encouragement.  I'm about to get back on the phone to Pfizer to try to get a decision out of them before they shut down for the holiday like many are doing on Friday since the 4th falls on Sat this year.  The lady at Pfizer I was dealing with and had built up some repoire is taking a couple of days of vacation tagged on to the holiday so I'll have to deal with a new person there now.  I'll see if they got all my faxes of information yesterday and where I stand today.  I'll keep you posted. 

Shotgun 

On 7/1/2009 570sheila wrote:

Hello Shotgun....

              PLEASE do NOT give up......try the American Cancer Society also. They are wonderful people and DO have lots of programs. I think IT IS AWFUL being in this day and age that we MUST fight for the medicine we NEED to survive. Its all about money AND I will say the INSURANCE COMPANIES SHOULD BE ASHAMED. Its SAD that people who are very sick and scared....HAVE TO fight for the meds that could save them and HAVE TO worry about HOW to pay for them. They want your money but could give two cents ABOUT THE PEOPLE that PAY them.....I guess they FORGOT if it wasn't for us ...THEY WOULD NOT have a company.They need customers to have a business....paying ones at that.

        I do understand that they are offering you another medicine....well you should consider it IF that is your only choice....IT MAKES ME MAD that they want you to take another med ......YOU DESERVE THE BEST....I HOPE AND PRAY that President Obama DOES something GOOD for this country and WE DO NEED CHANGES in our insurance companies.

        I will tell you our nightmare with Blue Cross.....They paid for my husbands raditation treatments....TomoTherphy which has to be set with a short CatScan. They would NOT pay for the setting of the lazer with the CatScan so he could have the raditation. Paid for 32 raditaion treatments but NOT the 32 catscans. I send them 25 dollars a month...all we can afford and they except it. Ted ALSO had 5FU in a pump...chemo treatment. They paid for the chemo BUT NOT the rental of the pump.....They also get what I can afford. We have to pay for the oncologist visits when he sees the doctor.....it went from 95 dollars to 155.....for the EXACT SAME visit at 95.

          We ARE very THANKFUL to the Roch Company for helping us with Ted's Xeloda...chemo pill. They are providing it to him FREE of any cost....If it wasn't for them.....we would have been in trouble since we could not afford to pay for it.  Shouldn't the INSURANCE company pay for it....IT IS CHEMO??????   Pill or not ....its chemo. There IS a serous problem with our insurance companies.....SOMETHING needs to be done. NO ONE should have to decide IF they can afford to have the treatmnets they NEED to survive. 

           Shotgun... Keep your head up and KEEP FIGHTING......IT WILL ALL work out. Please keep us posted...WE DO CARE ......

                                Hugs Sheila

GOOD NEWS....I called Pfizer again yesterday (Wed) to be sure they received the information I faxed to them on Tuesday, and to query about the impact of the holiday on things.  I pointed out that since Pfizer will be closed Friday, if we didn't get this done quickly we would get into the holiday closing and if approved, I wouldn't be able to start the treatment until next week some time and the cancer has already had over a week to grow unchecked while we worked on this.  I got a very sympathatic lady on the phone and she said she would personally expedite my request for help. And she did.  About 30 min later I got a call from "Zack" with Pfizer who said I was approved for receiving Sutent free of charge and they would even send it by Fedex overnight service so I'd have it to start today (Thursday).  What good news that was!  So unless some thing goes wrong in the Pharmacy div of Pfizer, it should come in today.  If it truly shipped yesterday, by now they should have a "tracking" number issued.  I'll call back today and see if I can get that number as with that, I can track it online and be sure it didn't get hung up in the pharmacy or shipping depts.

I am sorry to hear about your problems with Blue Cross. My wife used to work for a doctor and she did all the insurance and Medicare submittals for payment.  She said that job is an art more than a science, and knowing how to "code" the procedures when you submit the claims can make the difference between it getting paid or rejected for payment.  I hope you didn't have some little inexperienced  'airhead' who didn't know how to code it properly. 

I agree we need some reform in the health care situation as you pointed out, but I'm not sure Obama's plan is it.  I'm concerned it will turn out like it is in Canada and Europe where health care is rationed.  Last year when I had the cancerous kidney removed I had one complication after another and wound up spending two months in ICU followed by 2 weeks in a rehap hospital to learn to walk again.  I saw the bill for the first hospital and it was $652,000.  Although Medicare pays less than the billed price, under a rationing plan I suspect at some point a government bureaucrat who would be approving the expenses on Obama's plan would say this guy is costing too much money and just let him go.  A good look at how socialized medicine would be is to look at the VA healthcare system.  I won't critize the VA as they saved my life in '07 when I went to the ER at the VA hospital in Dallas with what I thought was just a respiratory bug going around.  Turned out I had viral pneumonia and I promptly dropped dead in the ER.  They resusitated me and a week later I came to so they saved my life.  Under their system, I have a 'primary caregiver' who is the doctor where I must start for everything.  Then if you need a Specialist she refers you up to one.  I can call any morning and get right in to see my primary that day or no later than the next day, but the system breaks down when you need a Specialist.  As a back  up to what I now have going on with a private oncologist, I also went to my primary and she referred me on an "urgent" request to see an oncologist on June 17th.  I finally got a letter from the VA last week saying they have scheduled me for lab work on July 8th followed by an appt with an oncologist a week after that.  So that's their idea of "URGENT REQUEST". That would be a month lost if I depended on them and my oncologist predicted I will die in 6 months if I go untreated, maybe less.  I've now got the Sutent covered, but that may not be the only cancer drug I need over time and I may be able to get some help with meds.  I can take scripts written by a private doctor to my Primary and she will re-write the script on her prescription pad so I can fill it from the VA pharmacy for only $8 per month for all meds.  Only problem is the private docs tend to prescribe the latest and greatest drugs and the VA doesn't have many that are new.. All cancer scrips must be written by an oncologist not by a primary, so I need to get established with one.

Regarding the chemo pills for your husband....that's the same thing I've been fighting with the Sutent.  If it were injected instead of a pill, Medicare and my AARP Plan F supplement would pay it all, but since it's a pill, it falls over to my weak little Humana Plan D pharmacy policy who first said they would cover Sutent, but with a co=pay of $4,800 per mo, then they later reniged and said they wouldn't pay for Sutent and tried to switch me to a cheaper drug the doctor didn't want.  Sounds like you don't have a Plan D supplement.  Is that correct? 

On 6/30/2009 Geri28 wrote:

Since you are on Social Security check with the Dept of Aging to see if there are any State programs to help with the costs. I use The New York State EPIC program and 4 rounds of Torisel costs me 20 dollars instead of 8,000. The amounts charged for chemo drugs and the other prescriptions for pain, and nausua are obscene. No one should be forced to choose whether to fight for thier lives or leave thier loved ones pennniless. Call the American Cancer Society they will help you .

Hi, Geri.  As you can see from my post to Sheila, Pfizer came through and is going to furnish Sutent free of charge.  Hopefully, I'll start it today as they said they were shipping it 'overnight service'. 

Thanks to all the great folks on this forum who have managed to live with this disease for quite some time, maybe its not quite as grim a future as I first thought.  Also the VA has wakened up finally and have scheduled me to see an oncologist on July 13th.  Even though I'm covered now on Sutent from my private oncologist, that may not be the only drug he ever prescribes me. The VA has been a valuable resource in the past for low cost drugs.  In their system ALL meds are $8 per month.  My primary caregiver with the VA has been good in the past about  're-writing' on her prescription pad scripts I've been given by private doctors if it's something the VA has, and I can then draw them from the VA pharmacy.  Hopefully I can get the same thing from the VA oncologist when I get to see him/her as only an oncologist can write scripts for cancer drugs.

Best regards,

Shotgun 

On 6/27/2009 rcc surviver wrote:

I live in Canada and as you know the medical system is based on socialized medicine with it very good and bad issues; but nevertheless, over all very good system.

Regarding you medications… first you yourself can take some initiative and call the drug companies yourself and tell them your story. Don’t wait for someone to do it for you . As a rule, they, the workers, will not go out of their way. They finish work at 4:30 PM and it will wait until the next day. In many cases the drug companies   are sympathetic  to people problems due to the bad reputation they have had  in the last few years regarding their earnings. In addition, you should Googol Clinical trials for RCC and see if there is a centre near you, you can join. When on trials all medications are free; and there is always a risk when on trial for yet not approved drugs.  

I am giving you a Canadian website that lists all the new meds and phone numbers to contact. Please try and don’t give up.  http://www.kidneycancercanada.org/main.php?p=332&lan=1

I hope it help you.

Cleo

Cleo, thank you for your suggestions.  I found out yesterday that Pfizer is going to let me have the Sutent free of charge, but you were right about me taking the initiative helping.  That Financial Counselor at the Cancer Clinic kept dropping the ball on requests from Pfizer for information by not promptly responding and not returning phone calls from me.  Things went much better once I took control of the affair and started dealing with Prizer direct.  When they wanted something like a copy of the prescription, I hustled it over to my neighborhood Kroger store and paid them to fax it for me.  The counselor has yet to get that done.  So now I'll be able to start the drug today when if arrives where if I had depended on the counselor, I wouldn't get the drug until after the holiday I feel sure.

Thanks again for the good advise.