149 – I Learn How to Keep Margaret Alive, Part 2: 17 January 2025

Early in the afternoon ofn 3 December 2021 I demanded that the health insurers obey the law.

By 7.30 pm on that day, Margaret’s cancer had retreated and her stents were removed.

I knew then that if I wanted Margaret to live, I had to force the health insurers to obey the law.

I was determined to enable Margaret to live.

Margaret and me on 26 March 2015 at Wilpena Pound, South Australia.

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As recounted in Blog 148, Margaret rang me at about 7:30 pm when she woke after her operation.  She had spoken to the surgeon and the surgeon had told her she could go home.  In the two days between the previous operation on 1 December and the latest operation on 3 December, the cancer had shrunk to the smallest size that the surgeon had ever seen it.  The cancer was not gone, but it had shrunk – and it had done this without any further treatment in the two days between 1 and 3 December.  The surgeon could not explain what had happened.  The surgeon told Margaret that unless she experienced cancer symptoms, he would not schedule another “look see” operation until one year later - December 2022.

The written report from the surgeon said this.

EUS Findings 1 As previous EUS, there was a nodal mass on the left of the celiac axis, measured up to 20 mm.  The lesion looked malignant and as requested, the lesion was biopsied using EUS FNA technique.  One pass of 25 G needle were performed for histology. 2 There was a cyst in the pancreatic head/ neck region.  The cyst looked benign and had no malignant features.  The ampulla was thickened and was hard on FNA.  One pass of 25 G FNA was performed to check for presence of carcinoma. 3 The main PD was 2.5 com in size. 4 The liver was also screened careful[ly] for mass lesion but no definite lesion can be seen in the visualises portion. 5 BBD stents had decompressed the biliary tract EUS Interventions FNA was performed

EUS = Endoscopic Ultrasound

FNA = Fine Needle Aspiration

PD = Pancreatic Duct

BBD stents = Benign Biliary Disease stents

The report says the stents had “decompressed the biliary duct”.  In plain English, this means the stents had restored the Margaret’s biliary to normal functioning.  On 1 December 2021, the biliary tract had been so blocked by the cancer that it could not function at all without the stents to keep it free of blockage by the cancer.  On 3 December the cancer had shrunk so much that Margaret’s bile duct had returned to its normal size and was functioning normally.  Something the surgeon does not mention in this report is that the cancer had shrunk so much that the surgeon removed the two stents in the bile duct because they were no longer needed!

I was torn between overwhelming joy and overwhelming shock as I left home to go to the hospital to bring Margaret home. 

On the Wednesday, Margaret had been on the verge of death.  She was being kept alive by two stents that allowed her bile duct to continue working.

Two days later on 3 December, the cancer had retreated so much that the surgeon removed the two stents from her bile duct.  The stents were no longer needed to keep Margaret alive.  It took days for me to properly digest what had happened.  As I wrote these words more than two years later, I am still stunned by what happened.

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At 12.51 pm on 3 December 2021, I emailed the first of what became a flood of letters to HCF demanding that it obey the law. 

At 12:54 pm on 3 December, I emailed the first of a separate long series of letters to the Commonwealth Ombudsman demanding that it force HCF to obey the law.

By 7:30 pm on 3 December, Margaret was granted a reprieve from death that we had prayed for, but never dared imagine might ever happen.

Without realising it, I had begun an unremitting struggle to force HCF to obey the law. 

I was so naïve on 3 December 2021 that I did not imagine for a moment that the Australian Health Department, which is supposedly the primary regulator of health insurers, knew exactly what the health insurers were doing and had decided to ignore their refusal to obey the law.

I was so naïve on 3 December 2021 that I did not imagine for a moment that the Commonwealth Ombudsman, which is supposedly the back up regulator of health insurers, also knew exactly what the health insurers were doing and had also decided to ignore their refusal to obey the law.

I was so naïve on 3 December 2021 that I did not imagine that the health insurers had intimate knowledge of the refusal of the regulators to do their jobs and that they knew they could ignore the law without any consequences from the regulators.

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Once I realised the significance of what had happened, it was impossible for me to stop struggling to force the health insurers to obey the law.  Letting the health insurers continue to break the law could never happen. 

If I let HCF and the other health insurers continue to be contemptuous of the law, Margaret’s cancer would return and she would die.

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When I eventually won the battle with the health insurers many months later, Margaret was still alive.  This - not the surrender of the health insurers – was what filled me with joy. 

I was of course thrilled by the mean spirited surrender of the health insurers and the ending of the efforts of the health insurers to crush Lift Cancer Care Services, but the elation from this surrender paled beside the continued life granted to my wife.