Gary’s progress with SIRT
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Wonderful news about the approval. Congratulations. And, no…liver resection is very complex and can only be undertaken by highly skilled surgeons, and it is an open surgery. But, we have seen, on this board, many patients resected successfully. I share in your good news and am wishing for tons more to come your way.
MarionWe just received a call from BCBS that Gary DID get approval for the SIRT procedure. We’re amazed(and a little skeptical) that it happened at all – much less so quickly. In the meantime we’re still waiting for word from Dr. Nelson at Duke for RFA and from Dr. Clary, the liver surgeon at Duke. Once we gather all our information, then we’ll decide which way to go. We’re extremely grateful that we have a way to go at all. Last week things looked much dimmer.
Just one more thing to throw out there – can liver resection be done through laparascope?
Ashley, we are hoping and praying that your mother gets approval for her transplant!Hi Elaine and Gary,
I hope BCBS changes their tune after getting the oncologist’s letter. Unfortunately I am not familiar with the abalation ( RFA) procedure but I am sure someone on this site has info for you. Ironically, my family is also waiting on BCBS. After my mother completes her Mayo pre-transplant testing this week and gets the doctor’s final recommendation, BCBS will take this info and determine if they will cover the transplant. In the meantime, the Mayo gave my mother a 460K figure last week for the cost of the transplant including the live donor surgery. The figures showed the downpayment without insurance to be ONLY 60K!! Obviously we are dumbfounded and crossing our fingers that BCBS will approve it.
I am hoping BCBS brings us both the news we want to hear!
Keep us posted..
ashleyThank you, Ashley, for asking about Gary. We’re still in contact with Dr. Kennedy. They’ve gotten the first refusal from BCBS and are now submitting letters from our oncologist stating that she has no more options for him. They seem confident about getting approval and have already scheduled Gary for Sept. 17th. However…we’re now seriously looking at RFA! This was recommended because it does less damage to good liver tissue. We’ve contacted Dr. Nelson at Duke and are waiting for him to review the CT scan. We have also inquired about RFA being done near Naples, FL as we would love to be there sooner than later. We would appreciate anything anyone can tell us about one procedure over the other – have already done searches on this website.
Keeping everyone in our prayers, Elaine and Gary
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