@lou277 Colleen had a great suggestion here to call the Billing and Insurance folks at Mayo. I called them recently and they were very friendly and helpful. My question was to find out what insurance I should get that would work at Mayo because I am about to loose my group insurance plan through my husband's employer and we will need to go on Medicare with a suplemental plan. I have had treatment at Mayo and wanted that to be an option going forward if I should need them. I found that the supplemental insurance plans that I could add to Medicare seem to limit treatment to the state where I live, and I don't live in Minnesota, so that was my dilemma. They had an answer for me, and now I could focus on the other things I need to do in the next few months.

We had a cancer scare too because that "pimple" on my husband's hand didn't go away, and then he thought it was a wart, so he put a Bandaid on it. About a year went by, and it looked like a pencil eraser that was kind of pinkish, and it turned out to be melanoma that had erupted through the skin, so he was off to surgery and now 2 years later he still has very frequent dermatology exams and screenings from his oncologist who he sees every 6 months.

There was a study going on at the time to test if no further treatment for a Stage 2 A melanoma ( the standard of care) or the Standard Stage 3 treatment of immunotherapy would be better if done at stage 2 for a cancer that had not spread. The results of the recent study doing immunotherapy earlier gave about a 25% better result if done at stage 2. I mention this because it may be worth asking what other options are available other than chemo.

Was he scared? You bet. I asked the questions and made the appointments and interpreted the recommendations for him because he couldn't focus on what he needed to do. It does really help to have someone help advocate for you, someone you trust. I had to learn to be my own advocate even when I was afraid because I needed spine surgery if I didn't want to become disabled. There were 5 surgeons (not at Mayo) who didn't want to help me, and that was hard, but I didn't give up because I had the choice to change my destiny if I faced my fear, and I was not going to let my fear make this choice for me.

You don't need to do everything at once. Break it down into baby steps, and try to accomplish at least one goal a day. The first is pretty easy in making a call to the friendly folks at Mayo just to get information. No harm in doing that... right? You need good information to make a good decision.

If you come on back with information about insurance, we can help support you as you take your next step. Take my hand. Let's do this together.