Papillary Thyroid Carcinmoa is the most common form of thyroid cancer. Unless you’re age 11 or under then the odds are roughly .5 in 1 million. Days before Brayden’s 11th birthday, a routine endocrine appointment turned life upside down. His thyroid had been visibly swollen and one of his lymph nodes had been consistently swollen for a few weeks with no signs of sickness. An ultrasound confirmed thyroid nodes in both sides of the thyroid with spread to the cervical lymph nodes. Testing would confirm all were positive for malignancy, papillary thyroid carcinoma. We met with the surgeons and developed a game plan, total thyroidectomy with bilateral neck dissection and multiple radioactive iodine treatments. But they needed more imaging to see just how many lymph nodes needed to come out on each side and decide whether or not it could safely be one surgery. At this point a few CTs and another thyroid ultrasound didn’t seem like a big deal, I have never been more wrong in my life. Today the CT found multiple miliary nodules in his lungs. It’s spreading via his bloodstream. Insurance has fought testing and treatment every step of the way. The original biopsy was denied three times before it was approved. Two of the surgeons are out of network, and literally every visit with the surgeon or imaging is billed as a hospital visit. Which means it’s not a $25-35 copay it’s the $500 hospital co-pay for in network and $1800 for out of network providers. It feels like insurance has put a price tag on my child’s life in the form of a catastrophic deductible (23k) and out of network provider fees (40-60% of bill).

The funds will be used for medical expenses, catching up his past medical bills acquired during furlough, transportation, medication, co-pays, out of pocket costs, bills and other expenses due to lost wages.