How was your day? Yea . . . OK . . . Yea . . . Well, let me tell you about mine.

The day started off pretty well with our first appointment on time. A consultation for the port they will put into Suzanne’s upper chest to administer the Chemotherapy. A quick lunch and off to the next appointment.

Then the wheels fell off, and not just one, all four! They called us back to the room for the appointment, started telling us what was to happen, then told us the higher-ups had payment issues and they couldn’t’ proceed. Let me get this right, you wait to tell us this 40 minutes before the procedure was to start?

Then I got a call from Rush billing. “Mr Bruns, since we don’t work with Medi-Share, we need payment before the procedures begin” Ok, I can get this figured out, so I left Suzanne alone on the 1st floor of the Radiation treatment center and headed off for the 10th floor in a building about a block away.

There she presented me the estimate of her radiation treatments and explained that it had to be pre-paid before they could start. The Total was $79,800. So I did as anyone else would do, reached into my back pocket, pulled out my American Express card, cause I don’t leave home without it, and told her to charge what she needed since everyone I know carries $80k credit limit on their cards.

I tried to get them to just bill me for today’s procedure and we would get the rest worked out before the next procedure, but no go, would not budge. So I called my wife and told her the day was done and we would have to come back another day. She was sobbing as I hung up the phone, emotionally drained after being prepared for the day.

So with my jogging shoes on, I headed back to my wife to try and console her and head back home. As I entered her room, the nurse came in and said they thought they had a solution and I should call billing again. They indicated that the amount I needed to pay that day was considerably less and would like to talk with me. The nurse informed me that we had about 20 minutes at that point or we would lose our time slot.

Back to the 10th floor I headed and was greeted with a number that I could pay that day using 4 different credit cards. Then I called the radiation nurse to tell her all was good and I would be right back down.

So Suzanne headed off to have her mask made and a final CT for placement. As she headed down the hall, I headed back to 10 for another chat with Billing. From the way the conversation went, it’s going to be an interesting week ahead as I have to pre-arrange payments for her entire treatment.

Oh yea, somewhere in all this, we did learn that the cancer is the better of the two and the Dr seemed optimistic. There were some smiles at least today.

And we know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose.
Romans 8:28