Chapter Five – Trying to Strike a Deal

    I am a fairly good negotiator. Well, I am when it comes to getting things for other people. For myself; not so much.

I did feel that after my diagnosis that I should have been able to negotiate a timeline for my treatment. Unfortunately, I did not have the opportunity to try my negotiation skills. I was always faced with "We need to do this within the next two weeks." Why two weeks? Why not a month? How fast was this cancer growing? Didn't it take me years to get where I am right now? Doctors don't negotiate. I guess they don't have to.

    I began to wonder if doctors try to schedule surgeries based on their own availability. If my surgeon were leaving tomorrow for a trip around the world for two months would she have given me two and a half months to get the surgery performed or would she have referred me to another doctor?

    I needed at least six months to do everything I could to find out answers to my questions, get things in order and live what was left of a possibly normal life. Would they consider giving me six months? No? Why the rush?

    Maybe some people faced with a diagnosis such as this pull out their insurance card and jump right up on the operating table. Since my insurance was limited, I wasn't going to be one of them. I didn't have the insurance and I didn't have all my questions answered.

    This may be what saved my life or at least allowed me to make my own decisions.