March 24th, 2022

Nate was set to begin his treatment on Monday, March 14, but of course nothing can go smoothly when it comes to this process. He received a phone call at around 10:00am that Monday, just four hours before his appointment was set to begin. He had already started fasting for the first hour before taking his chemotherapy pill when the call came in. His nurse at the radiation center informed him that his insurance company hadn't yet approved the procedures, so the hospital was unable to treat him that day. Evidently insurance companies take up to 15 days to confirm coverage of treatments, and the request had gone out 12 days ago, so it was still being processed. (Editor's Note: What I learned from this, personally, is that the health insurance industry is big fat scam — but I think I'm the jaded one in the family.) 

Sharon immediately got to work tracking down the insurance company and figuring out what exactly the delay was. It turned out that Nate's intake nurse had forgotten to mark his insurance request as "urgent," and apparently had only remembered to do so that Sunday. (Editor's Note: One would think that any insurance request that contains the words "radiation" or "cancer" might be automatically marked as urgent, but I, a humble community manager, couldn't possibly know how to streamline this convoluted system.) The insurance agent told Sharon that even urgent orders take up to 72 hours to process. The scariest thing about glioblastoma is that since it grows so rapidly every day counts. This was a tiny nightmare inside of our much larger nightmare. The insurance agent shared his personal story of having a family member deal with cancer, and told Sharon he would check on Nate's case every night and day until the clearance came through. Due to his tenacity on our behalf, and his empathy for our position, the insurance agent got Nate's insurance pushed through sooner than we expected. Nate was able to go in for his simulation appointment on Tuesday to do a dry run of what would become his everyday treatment routine. Wednesday was D-Day, the day his chemotherapy and radiation treatments officially began. It's a fairly quick process, and he said overall it was easy-peasy. Nate is incredibly brave and determined to push through this, and he refuses to be another number. 

One of three photos in the family group chat that provided us with a multi-cam view of Nate's experience

Nate has now completed 7 sessions of radiation therapy and 9 treatments into his chemotherapy. Nate says that he doesn't really see any side effects yet other than fatigue, but that could also a byproduct of him using his overworked brain. This whole process has been a roller coaster of emotion that is difficult to keep up with. The ups and downs are sickening, but we're trying to keep ourselves afloat. Nate is an absolute champion, staying steady through all of this, and ultimately, we are moving forward. The healing has begun.