As many of us are faced with so many hard trials through life in general, let alone add in a stage IV cancer diagnosis, one thing you shouldn't be faced with is the possibility of losing your health coverage. Right now there are some dangerous bills floating around our government and it is important to share our stories so people know what they are voting on. I sent the following to my representatives in hopes to be heard and stop a dangerous change from happening. We shall see what happens. For now I know that I am covered for 2017.
"I am a 34 year old Utah native and I have stage IV melanoma and have been fighting for 8 years. I've fought through being declined insurance by four insurance companies for preexisting conditions/high risk when that was legal; then I carried "catastrophic care" insurance until the Affordable Care Act was implemented.
My treatments are ever changing and prices range from $5k to $250k depending on what I have to do to keep fighting. I reached my deductible and out of pocket maximum on January 10th of this year.
With the new American Health Care Act I fear my life will be in jeopardy as I am a preexisting condition, and an expensive one at that. I will reach the maximum lifetime limit quickly and will literally have to choose between life and death possibly, due to a vote you will place that affects millions of lives.
Please put faces to your votes, not dollar signs, and show that you are an understanding and caring human that doesn't wish the worst on people.
My name is Alexis Waters and I choose to fight to live and I want you to fight to allow me that right. I didn't choose this battle but I want the choice of how I fight to be mine, not the governments."
My treatments are ever changing and prices range from $5k to $250k depending on what I have to do to keep fighting. I reached my deductible and out of pocket maximum on January 10th of this year.
With the new American Health Care Act I fear my life will be in jeopardy as I am a preexisting condition, and an expensive one at that. I will reach the maximum lifetime limit quickly and will literally have to choose between life and death possibly, due to a vote you will place that affects millions of lives.
Please put faces to your votes, not dollar signs, and show that you are an understanding and caring human that doesn't wish the worst on people.
My name is Alexis Waters and I choose to fight to live and I want you to fight to allow me that right. I didn't choose this battle but I want the choice of how I fight to be mine, not the governments."
If you don't speak up, you'll never be heard
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ReplyDeleteDear Alexis,
ReplyDeleteIf in fact you have been "fighting" stage IV melanoma for 8 years, that means it has nothing to do with your treatments.
Before treatments for cancer, or melanoma in particular were invented (prior to 1950), we knew that about 10% of melanoma patients would live 10 years or more with metastatic melanoma. No treatments whatsoever. We know this because survival statistics of melanoma patients, who were not cured with early surgeries, were published in the medical literature in the late 1800s and early 1900s when we did not have any way to treat metastatic melanoma (copies available upon request).
But, let me talk about your problem. I can treat your stage IV melanoma, at no cost to you or your insurance, and have it eradicated from your body in three months (but treatment should continue for 6 months).
I have a cancer clinical trial registered with the US National Institute of health, and melanoma has been the type of tumors that respond the best this new treatment (although many others types also respond). You would need to enrol in the trial.
See this short video in which you will see three Canadian patients talking about their experience with this new form of treatment. Two of them had Stage IV melanoma. Both were treated in top Canadian hospitals but eventually regarded as terminal. One has been now free of disease for 4 years and the other for three:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JvdWsQQa598&t=44s
I have a new patient who was treated in university hospitals in Germany and Turkey. After a year in those treatments, enrolled in our trial in July 2017. By then her liver metastases had the size of large oranges or small melons. I would like to send you some images of her liver MRI so you see the changes in only one month of treatment.
Please send me an e-mail to put you in contact with all these three patients mentioned above.
If in fact your cancer is eradicated with this treatment, I would only ask you to help me to spread the word so that other young stage IV melanoma patients like you are treated correctly and saved.
my best email address to contact me: arguellof@atavisticchemotherapy.com
With kind regards and best wishes,
Frank Arguello, MD
Director, Atavistic Chemotherapy Trial
www.AtavisticChemotherapy.com
Former Assistant Professor of Oncology,
and Pediatrics, Hematology and Oncology,
University of Rochester School of Medicine and Dentistry.
Rochester, New York USA.
Former Senior Scientist,
Division of Cancer Treatment & Diagnosis,
National Cancer Institute, National Institutes of Health.
Frederick, Maryland USA.
Tel (301) 760-7777; Fax (301) 690-9000