Hankin Redden Blog

64 Living With Cancer January to April 2022: 22w October 2024

Although the cancer had placed her life in deadly peril on 1 December 2021, Margaret remained in relatively good health throughout December 2021 and January 2022. The special miracle that had seen her cancer shrink between 1 and 3 December 2021 continued its wonderful work. Margaret was adamant that her cancer was merely in remission and that it would definitely come back again, but I permitted myself a glimmer of hope. Surely Margaret would continue to give me the blessing of a continuation of our life together?

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Margaret had exercise therapy three times in January 2022. This Table summarises the claims lodged with HCF and what HCF did with them.

Date of Clam (January 2022)	Claim Paid or Unpaid?	Notification to Us?
7 January*	Not Paid	We were ignored by HCF
18 January**	Not Paid	We were ignored by HCF
25 January***	Not Paid	We were ignored by HCF

* Emailed on 22 February 2022 to Junita Lindsay at HCF

** Emailed on 4 February 2022 to Junita Lindsay at HCF

*** Emailed on 12 February 2022

HCF did not show us the courtesy of acknowledging it had received our claims. It did not reject the claims and it gave us no explanation at all regarding the fate of the claims. These claims still do not exist on the HCF official claims’ history record.

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Inexplicably, Margaret continued to be in relatively good health throughout February 2022. We continued occupying an astonishing place of safety named God’s Pocket.

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Margaret had exercise therapy on three occasions in February 2022. This Table summarises the claims lodged with HCF and what HCF did with them.

Date of Clam (February 2022)	Claim Paid or Unpaid?	Notification to Us?
2 February*	Not Paid	We were ignored by HCF
10 February**	Not Paid	We were ignored by HCF
23 February***	Not Paid	We were ignored by HCF

* Emailed on 24 February 2022 to Junita Lindsay at HCF

** Emailed on 10 March 2022 to Junita Lindsay at HCF

*** Emailed on 19 March 2022 to Junita Lindsay at HCF

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The mystery of Margaret’s good health continued during March 2022. Our occupation of the place called God’s Pocket continued.

Margaret had a cat scan on Friday 4 March. The cancer was identified as an irregular mass in the ampulla. It measured 24 millimetres in diameter. Inexplicably, the tumour had not grown. The oncologist scheduled the next cat scan for June 2022. While the cancer was “dormant”, there was no reason for immediate alarm.

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During the operation on 3 December 2021, the surgeon had extracted a tissue sample and forwarded it for testing by a pathology laboratory in Victoria. On 22 March 2022, nearly four months later, the laboratory advised our oncologist that it would “commence processing the sample for sequencing”. The hope was that the tissue sample would identify Margaret as a suitable candidate for Immunotherapy. Immunotherapy is a treatment which enables the body to recognise the cancer cells as “bad guys”.

If the immune system can recognise something in the body as “foreign”, the immune system attacks it vigorously. Cancer is an uncontrolled growth of the body’s own cells. This means the immune system is normally unable to recognise cancer cells as “foreign”; this means the cancer cells are allowed to grow without attack from the immune system. This is one of the main reasons why cancer is often a deadly disease. The immune system does not recognise cancer cells are foreign, the cancer cells are ignored and the cancer grows unhindered by the body’s immune system.

Our hopes for an alternative treatment option through immunotherapy disappeared when the oncologist received another email from the laboratory on 29 March. This email said “Insufficient specimen for analysis. Test not performed.” Additional tissue sample material could only be obtained through another operation. For the time being at least, immunotherapy was not an option.

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Margaret had a fatal cancer, but for reasons the oncologist could not explain, her relatively good health continued throughout April 2022 and the cancer continued to stay hidden. The next cat scan was scheduled for June 2022.

Our life continued the pattern of what had now become “normal”. Perhaps the cancer would “disappear”. I certainly hoped this would happen despite Margaret’s scepticism.

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Margaret had exercise therapy on four occasions in April 2022. This Table summarises the claims lodged with HCF and what HCF did with them.

Date of Clam (April 2022)	Claim Paid or Unpaid?	Notification to Us?
7 April*	Not Paid	We were ignored by HCF
12 April**	Not Paid	We were ignored by HCF
20 April***	Not Paid	We were ignored by HCF
29 April****	Yes – but only as a “discretionary payment”	Yes - email dated 14 June 2022

* Emailed on 4 April 2022 to Junita Lindsay at HCF with Letter dated 5 May 2022

** Emailed on 25 April 2022 to Junita Lindsay at HCF with Letter dated 5 May 2022

*** Emailed on 25 April 2022 to Junita Lindsay at HCF with Letter dated 5 May 2022

**** Emailed on 14 June to Lynette Macks with Letter dated 14 June 2022

Although all of these claims for Lift services provided to Margaret in April 2022 were – like their predecessors - officially ignored by HCF, it was clear I was having an impact.

Although the claims for Lift services provided on 7, 12 and 20 April were treated as if they had never existed – just like all previous claims - the claim for Lift services provided on 29 April was replied to on the very day it was submitted and I was told by HCF that it had been paid as a “discretionary payment”. According to our official HCF claims’ history record, none of the April claims were ever lodged with HCF.

My relentless continuation and broadening of my letter war with the health insurers was finally forcing them to pay lip service to the law. The Health Department – as the primary regulator – and the Commonwealth Ombudsman – as the secondary regulator – continued to show zero interest in doing their jobs.

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We had a short holiday in the South Australian town of Robe in November 2020. Margaret and I were accompanied by two of her closest friends – Sue Chapman and Anne Ryan.