ron-smith
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Hi Sue
I will be having my third treatment tomorrow. It hasn’t been too bad but I find that Wednesday I feel really rotten all day. It’s a bit like having the flu at the same time as having a really bad hangover (with none of the enjoyment!). Thursday, I’m feeling a bit better and am pretty well back to normal by Saturday. Just in time for blood tests on Monday and the next round of chemo on Tuesday.
I will be having a CT scan on Wednesday but this is the first since April. So this one, although it is well into the treatment, will be the base line.
Hi Lainy
Yes that is the type of insurance I am talking about. If I had no existing medical condition then I could quite easily purchase a family policy for trips to the States for a year for less than $200. However, as soon as you declare a condition the insurers go into hiding since they are faced with a real risk. This restricts choice quite dramatically. Anyone following my adventures here will know that I have two existing conditions. As well as the cc I also have angina. I spent hours trawling the internet and could only find one UK insurer who would take me on, but that was on the basis I was not having ongoing treatment. I know for most things in the financial market, you have to be resident in the country of the provider. So I would not be able to purchase insurance from a US company. In any case, my experience is that insurance is much more expensive in the States than in the UK.
All the best
Ron
Jeff
Travel Insusrance is a bit of a misnomer. It covers delay or cancellation of holiday, loss or damage to baggage and property, some personal liability insurance but mainly, medical cover. Coming to the States I look for medical cover ofKris
Would your parent’s insurance give you some medical cover? We tend to forget how well set up we are in the UK, for buying package holidays and all the paraphernalia that goes with them, like travel and medical insurance. I’ll keep an eye out for any breakthrough with Macmillan Nurses and travel insurance, but have some doubt that it will apply to the States. Can you not get medical cover on the internet? That’s how I’ve managed to get it in the past. The company I used is called Free Spirit Travel Insurance but that probably just applies to the UK.
Enjoy your holiday.
Ron
OK Kris, I know I will be accused of being flippant, but what the heck!
If all else fails, try a large glass of……………………..Barr’s Irn Bru. Good for most ailments.
Enjoy your holiday. How long are you away for? Since I started Chemo I have now given up any hope of returning to Florida. No company will now entertain offering me insurance. Even if they did I could never afford the premium. In May, before I had any treatment, the premium for me alone, just for 3 weeks in Florida, was over
Hi Kris
You could ask your GP to prescribe Gaviscon Advance. It is much stronger than the regular stuff and I believe requires a prescription.
All the best
Ron
Hi Gavin
Welcome to the site; it’s just a shame that you have to be here. I live in Falkirk which, for the benefit of our American friends, is about a 90 minute drive from Dundee. As I’ve said before, Scotland is a small country and so everywhere is close to anywhere else.
I started my treatment at Edinburgh Royal and had 2 resections done there in August 2006 then March 2007. Unfortunately the tumours returned and could not be operated on. So for the last year I have been attending the Beatson Centre in Glasgow. That’s where things really started to get a bit hairy. I had already been told that the only treatment that would be suitable for me would be palliative chemotherapy and that gemtitabine would be the recommended drug. However, I was also left in no doubt that any benefit would be, at best, marginal and that it could have a really detrimental effect on my general health. It was left that I could start the chemo at a later date if I started to show symptoms. So every 4 weeks I attended the clinic at Beatson, was asked how I was feeling, had some blood taken and sent home. Recently I noticed changes and general discomfort so on Tuesday I started my first course of gemcitabine. Everyone tells me that gemcitabine is tolerated well by everyone – I have been feeling dreadful since Wednesday morning! My worry now is that the cancer has spread so much that it is that and not the gemcitabine that is making me feel so unwell. Anyway, I have a CT scan scheduled for October 8 so may get some answers then.
I didn’t mean to give you so much of my tales of woe. You and your family have enough troubles to be getting on with. It is good to see that Ninewells is being proactive in arranging treatment and I will be really interested in hearing how your father gets on with PDT. I mentioned this to my surgeon a year ago and it was dismissed. One thing you will notice on this site is the involvement of insurance companies. Depending on the cover you have you either get very little treatment or everything that’s going. The perceived knowledge in Edinburgh and Glasgow is that Americans get so many different treatments because the insurers pay for it and the hospitals need the income to pay for the facilities. I would be interested to learn if they have the same view in Dundee. The other obstacle to treatment here can be the patient’s age. How old is your father?
All the best to your father
Ron
Stacie
Thank you for taking the trouble to find out the current position. I have no doubt, that in the best British tradition, there will be a number of committees set up to discuss this. There will be a few “jollies” for the committee members, no doubt including the occasional foreign trip to see how others handle things. Or am I just a cynic?
Ron
Jeff
This site gives details of a number of F111, by reference to their tail numbers. A bit strange but probably interesting if you recognise any of them.
http://www.f-111.net/t_no_F.htmPauline
Thanks for your good wishes. If this chemo doesn’t work and there is nothing else available, then Professor Evans has indicated that he will get me into new trials. I believe he is on the Boards of various trials so he should be well placed. But I will keep a note of BIBW 2992.Thanks again
RonJeff
I don’t want to bore you but I was looking at the Prestwick site and thought this reference to the Royal Navy Air Station quite interesting. Would this have been the one you visited? I see they had at least one quite well known visitor.“Prestwick is also home to a Royal Navy Air Station, more popularly known as HMS Gannet, where Sea King search and rescue helicopters are stationed. Although the US Air Force no longer has a base at the airport, Prestwick continues to handle a large number of US military flights. It was at this airport that Elvis Presley set foot in the UK for the only time, when his US Army transport aircraft stopped for refuelling en route from Germany in 1960.”.
Jeff
Don’t knock it till you try it. It’s a pity with you being stationed at RAF bases that you never managed to attend a Burns Supper, then you would know how good it can taste, especially when washed down with a dram. I am impressed that you knew what “uisge-beatha” means. You’re ovbiously not a lost cause! LOL!!!It’s uncanny Kris, there’s something else we have in common. But you surprise me as I thought weegies’ sauce of choice was tomato. Must be a case of nurture rather than nature.
Jeff
To be truthful, I think most of the sightings are made after close contact with “uisge-beatha”! Since I no longer follow that course I am unlikely to catch sight of Nessie. By the way, it is a dead give-away to all that you are a tourist if you call Loch Ness a Lock or a Lake. The c and h are softly sounded together from the back of the throat and not given a hard sound as in lock.I don’t know which RAF base it would be but, remember, Scotland is a small country so everywhere is close to Loch Ness or anywhere else. This link should give you a list of bases in Scotland, so, if you are really bored, you might be able to find the right one.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_RAF_stations#Scotland_.28current.29
Had they given you haggis and neeps then you would really have had a story to tell.
Ron
Dear Kris and Joyce
Many thanks for your good wishes.
Kris, I will start the chemo on Tuesday and it is all done at the Beatson. That is now the main cancer centre in Scotland. Not sure what your reference to Dundee means; my local hospitals would be Falkirk or Stirling. But it is only the Beatson that gives gemcitabine. I stopped attending Edinburgh a year ago when it was decided that the only course available would be palliative chemo. I have an open invitation to contact Mr Powell if I wish to chat but, really, there is no real point. Everything is done at the Beatson or neighbouring Gartnavel.
I have often been told I need my head examined but, to date, I have resisted the pressure to get a head doctor. Seriously though, the link with Leeds never happened since Professor Lodge felt he could do nothing for me.
One question Kris – were you a brown or a red girl?
Ron
I have always felt that the cost of medicinal drugs, especially the life-saving or life-extending drugs, is obscene. In my view it is impossible to make a case to justify costs of several thousand pounds (or dollars) per treatment particularly when looking at production costs. In my own working life I have audited the accounts of suppliers and manufacturers within the pharmaceuticals industry and what always struck me was how little regard the major drug companies have to the costs being charged to them by contractors. The reason for this is that, as a percentage of the final sales values, these production costs are negligible. I accept that R & D costs can be very high and that only a small number of the products that the companies start to develop are ever brought to the market. It is therefore necessary for the R & D costs to be recovered through sales. But what is the point in charging ridiculously high amounts for the drugs so that very few can take advantage of them? Would it not be better to substantially reduce the selling price which would result in far greater quantities being sold?
My little rant!
Ron
