Desperate for Relief: Seeking Advice on Ileostomy

I was diagnosed with UC when I was 14 (back in 1972), 4 years later I had surgery and I've had a colostomy for 42 years now. The surgery allowed me to go to college and lead a full and happy life. I think you need a consult with another doc. My 2

Heya!

You've had so many great responses, so the only thing I have to add is making sure you do whatever needs to be done to ensure insurance covers your surgery and the supplies afterwards.

My story is longer than I want to type now, but one reason I went straight to surgery and no chemo/radiation first was because their biopsy did not show cancer on the front end. By all looks of it and a CT scan saying it had gone through 3 layers of my colon, the doc said "tissue is the issue" and unless we have it, insurance will not cover chemo/radiation.

Long story short was my post-surgery pathology did find cancer after all, but luckily associated lymph nodes tested clear. Then my resection failed and I had to go in to the ER to have it repaired and add my colostomy. When I got home from the hospital, I was treated to a letter from the insurance company stating that my $100,000 surgery wasn't medically necessary, so they weren't going to cover it. They ended up getting the post-surgery reports and covering it, but that letter scared me pretty bad.

Basically, I learned that insurance is going to do whatever it can to not pay for expensive stuff. So if you have to prove a track record of pain, bad reaction to pills, lack of being able to function normally, inability to hold down work, get all those ducks in a pretty row to make sure you'll be covered.