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Interviews
Yvonne King
Interviewer
Could you briefly tell me the story about when you were first diagnosed with cancer or when that was or what happened?
Yvonne King
Yes. I was diagnosed with cancer on May 20th of 2000. I went in the hospital the day before on Mother’s Day on the 18th or 19th whatever it was and was prepped for surgery for a colon resection and they preformed that at that time. I spent three weeks in the hospital because I had some complications. When I came out I owed a total of 87,000 dollars because I was uninsured. They asked me to go do chemo. I went to an Oncologists office and it was 320 dollars for him to draw blood and to tell me he wants me to come in for chemo three times a week. So I told him okay I'll try to do that, what's the price going to be? He told me, well you know it's kind of iffy, it depends on how you respond to the chemo. If you have trouble with your RBC's then we'll have to take you off the chemo and then we'll have to start it all over again from base one. He said it could run into thousands of dollars. We sat down and started figuring and between what I already owed and what the bare minimum for him would be it was around 125,000 for the both. So I told him there's just no way, I can't do it. I never in my lifetime would be able to pay it back. So no, I'm not going to do chemo. So I didn't do it. I'm sure he was a little bit disappointed, I'm sure the surgeon was, however I have children and grandchildren and I don't want to leave my bills and my responsibilities on them.
Interviewer
That just seems like such an outrage to say, I can't afford chemotherapy. It seems like a decision you shouldn't have to be faced with. What were you thinking?
Yvonne King
What I was thinking at the time was what would happen with the kids. I didn't want the bills to be passed on to them. I didn't want to end up...because there was no way, no way that I would ever be able to pay it back and I didn't want to owe that kind of money and my kids to this day tell me your life is more important than the money. I tell them yes it is, however when I die I don't want you kids to have to be responsible for what happened with me. I know firsthand the consequences of that. Mom died from breast cancer when we were kids and when she passed away after eight years dad was left with astronomical bills that he had to pay and he worked for years and years to get those paid. So I know firsthand what the responsibility it is and for me I have a conscience, I have to know that services that are rendered I have to be able to pay.
Interviewer
So you don't feel okay with people just giving you charity care?
Yvonne King
No, I really don't. You know it's something that's very hard for me, very difficult for me.
Interviewer
Why is that?
Yvonne King
Because, I don't know maybe it's the way I was raised where you're to be responsible for what happens to you. That's the only thing that I can figure out. It makes me feel bad because I always feel like there's somebody else who could probably benefit more from it than I could. You know, that's another reason. I will be honest with you, since we lost our mom when we were kids my sisters and I felt like anything above and beyond raising our own kids was just an added bonus to life. If we made it that long, because our mom was only 42 when she passed away and we decided a long time ago if we can raise our kids and be here long enough to raise our kids then boy we've had a good life and you know it's worked. You know, we've all been here. My youngest sister did pass away with lung cancer back in 2002 but her children were raised and we just went "whew".
Interviewer
So you got to raise your kids.
Yvonne King
Yes, she got to raise her kids. Her first granddaughter was born two days after she passed away.
Interviewer
I want to go back a little bit. How long was it when you were first diagnosed and how long did you wait to get treatment?
Yvonne King
I left to Salt Lake and went back to Maine back in '98 and I was working back there for MBNA America and I was sick a lot of the time. I knew when I left here that I was sick and I didn't want to tell anybody because I didn't have insurance and I didn't know what to do, so I went to a sisters house back in Maine and I was there probably six weeks and I started getting more and more sick. I went ahead and went to work, found a job. I went with her 35 miles each way back and forth to work and there were days that I would get to work and one of the custodians would meet me in the bathroom because I'd be so sick and finally a cousin of George Mitchell that I worked with told me "what's making you so sick"? I told her "I think it's the food, it could be the water, it could be anything." That's what I thought at first so she said, "We'll fly your food here from Utah, we'll do this, we'll do that if you'll just stay". I told her "you know I'd love to stay," but I kept getting more and more sick and finally she told me "the company is just going to take you to the hospital because you're really seriously ill." I told her "I don't know anybody here; I live 35 miles from the nearest hospital. I really would rather go back to Utah." And she said "okay". So I told everybody goodbye, came back to Utah and then I couldn't find a doctor to take me in.
Interviewer
So you were uninsured and you knew something was wrong?
Yvonne King
Yeah and I thought if went back to Maine there would be a possibility, a slight possibility of turning things around to where I could maybe find a fulltime job with benefits but that didn't happen back there either. I thought you know this is just not good. So I ended up coming back to Salt Lake and I had to tell three kids I have cancer. I know I have cancer and I've got to get into a doctor. So I tried one doctor...actually I went into a cancer screening clinic and they told me yeah you do have cancer. We all thought it was ovarian. Then I started seeing a doctor at IHC and he ordered a CAT scan up at LDS and I had the CAT scan on a Saturday morning, I got home which was not even five minutes from the hospital where I had the CAT scan and he was on the phone telling me I need to see you right away. I need you to come in right now. So I went in to see him and he told me the tumor was in my colon, not ovarian and that I needed to go see a specialist. He wished me good luck and gave me the name of the specialist. I went into the specialist and they called me again and said, the CAT scan looks like maybe your adrenal gland is involved so we need to do another one to check. So went up and had another one done and they confirmed that the adrenal gland wasn't involved. I got extremely lucky. They scheduled for a colonoscopy...I mean this was all within a two week period and then the doctor that did the colonoscopy.
Interviewer
So you were diagnosed with cancer and how long did it take you to get care?
Yvonne King
It took me a year from the time I came back from Maine before I finally made it into the hospital. It took almost a full year; it was almost exactly the full year which is amazing.
Interviewer
Why?
Yvonne King
Because I thought I would be able to come back and get help and get into a doctor and it just didn't work that way. So it seemed like everywhere I went, everywhere I tried to apply I was turned away because I was a single woman and when I came out of the hospital I called Medicaid to see if they could help with the bills before I went in for chemo and basically what I was told by a woman at Medicaid (I had no income coming in) and she told basically if you were a married woman we could help you but because you're a single woman we can't. I told her if I were a married woman I probably wouldn't need your help. Unfortunately I'm not. So I got off the phone and thought, what am I going to do? I know what you're thinking.
Interviewer
What am I thinking?
Yvonne King
I hear it from my kids all the time about getting medical care. But sometimes it's difficult when you don't have the options that other people do.
Interviewer
Explain that to me. Explain why it took so long for you to get help.
Yvonne King
Because I had no way to get medical insurance I couldn't get insured in any way shape or form and every place I called...I called the Huntsman Cancer Center twice and was told we can't help you without insurance. I thought wow, now what do I do? So I would call around and try to get into a doctor to see what I could do and if you didn't have insurance you just couldn't get in.
Interviewer
It seems incredible that you were told you had cancer and yet you couldn't get treatment for a year?
Yvonne King
Well it wasn't a full year from the time I was told I had cancer. It was like a couple of months from the time I was told before I actually got the treatment. But it was a full year of trying to get the treatment because I knew I had cancer. So it was a long time.
Interviewer
What was that like?
Yvonne King
It was like being on a roller coaster. I kept thinking, what am I going to do? I really need some form of insurance to be able to get into the doctor. But I was so sick that I couldn't hold down a fulltime job, I was just working part-time so there was no medical benefits, no benefits and I thought boy this is Catch 22 and then finally I got a job for Feature Films for Families which was fulltime. I worked with them for probably two months and of that two months I probably missed half of the time I was supposed to be there and when they scheduled me for surgery that's when I started getting things rolling and they scheduled me for surgery. When I went back and tried to get on with them after the surgery they told me we're sorry and I tried one more time to get hired by them and they told me sorry.
Interviewer
Why do you think that is?
Yvonne King
Basically they told me it was because I had missed so much work, I told them well you know at the time I had cancer and I was seriously ill and they said, it doesn't make any difference, it's just the way it is.
Interviewer
Were you ever insured?
Yvonne King
Yes I was when my children lived with me I had insurance.
Interviewer
Did you ever think you'd see a day when you couldn't afford it?
Yvonne King
No, I didn't and you know it’s ironic because my mother before she died, the last thing that she did (she was involved in the community a lot) she went to the county government and had the Redwood Multipurpose Center built and then dad worked with the people up at the "U" Hospital to get the medical programs through the community health centers so that people wouldn't be turned away for medical care and you know it's been so ironic because here my parents set all of that up and I was in the situation where I couldn't get any medical help no matter what I did.
Interviewer
I how frustrating was that?
Yvonne King
Extremely. It was extremely frustrating and unbelievable to me. I thought how could this be, how could this be happening. I had someone tell me go try to get on Social Security. I don't want Social Security, I would prefer not to.
Interviewer
Where do you find yourself now in terms of the cancer and your health?
Yvonne King
I haven't had any further testing since I had my surgery. I did have the doctor who did the first colonoscopy contact me and wanted to do another one a couple of years ago however the cost for that was around 1300 dollars and I told him I can't afford it. There's just no way. So I didn't do it.
Interviewer
How do you feel about that?
Yvonne King
Disappointed. I would like to be able to afford my own medical care and to be able to do what I know I have to do. Because I don't know if you realize but once you've had cancer and you feel that there's a possibility of death...when I came out of the hospital it was like I couldn't live enough. I wanted to reach out and feel and taste and touch everything there was and to learn everything there was and the possibility of not being around tomorrow was very frightening. So yeah, you do think about a lot of things. At the time I remember one spring morning my oldest granddaughter was nine months old when I had my surgery and my second granddaughter was six weeks old and I remember being at Nicole's house with Chloe and standing out on her sundeck, it was just about around the first part of June, it was such a beautiful day and I walked out on that sundeck and thought how good it is to be alive! How great this is, how close I came because I was in the final third stage of cancer. The tumor had actually ruptured my colon when I was back in Maine. I felt it, I was in the shower at 5:30 in the morning and it was just like something inside of me jumped up and twisted and turned and I thought, well, you know I can't do anything about it today I'll just go into work. So that's what I did, you know what am I going to do? I don't know any doctors, I don't know anybody here, I'm scared to death.
Interviewer
Do you feel like if you had insurance and you had access to care that you would have gotten care earlier?
Yvonne King
Yeah I do, in fact I know I would have.
Interviewer
Explain that to me.
Yvonne King
If I had had the insurance to go into the doctor I probably would have gone in when I first realized that there was something wrong. I wouldn't have put it off. I always looked at the expense and the price. I was taught my whole life not to charge, not to take advantage of…if you don't have the money for something then you don't buy it, you don't spend it and it’s a hard thing to break when it was something I grew up with.
Interviewer
And now you've got 87,000?
Yvonne King
Yeah, the hospital wrote off about 40,000 of it so I've got about 47,000 dollars still.
Interviewer
What do you do with that?
Yvonne King
I don't know... I don't know what I'm going to do. I was going to go file bankruptcy but I haven't been able to get the money together to go pay for the down payment that's needed, the money that's needed for the bankruptcy.
Interviewer
So what do you do? You just hope?
Yvonne King
Yeah, I pray a lot.
Interviewer
It seems like your faith too gets you through all of this.
Yvonne King
Yeah it does.
Interviewer
How has that been effective for you?
Yvonne King
My whole life I was raised in an LDS home and we were taught to believe in God and to fear God and no matter what, no matter how bad life got there was always a light at the end of the tunnel and that God was there to take care of you and you know that's been the case a lot. It doesn't matter what we've gone through, even the loss of mom, it was a very, very difficult time but there was just faith that even though she was gone and we missed her and we loved her that there would be a time that we'd see her again. Everything that we missed here in this life we would have in the hereafter I think being LDS has been a blessing.
Interviewer
I'm sure it's gotten you through a lot of tough times.
Yvonne King
It has, it really has.
Interviewer
One thing you said that I thought was especially poignant was the fact that you really made a lot of people appreciate life. You appreciate your grandkids, you appreciate your kids and yet the irony to me is almost on the other hand you don't know about the cancer and if it has returned.
Yvonne King
I have no idea. I had to sit one of my...Chloe was only nine months old when I had the surgery and her mother would bring her up every day to see me and she got to where she wouldn't eat, she wouldn't take her bottle, she wouldn't do anything until after I got out of the hospital then she started eating again and about a year later when she was old enough to speak she crawled up on my lap and she calls me 'Dodo' and she says, "Dodo don't ever get sick again okay? " I told her okay Chloe if I can never get sick again I'll do it. So it was almost as if even though she was nine months old she knew. She's just; I don't know she's got this sense about her that she knows things sometimes before I know she'll recognize before I do. She a wise one at seven years old almost eight.
Interviewer
Do you find that because life is more precious in a way that it's also more precarious, that it could all be taken away?
Yvonne King
Yeah, it is. You know when I was back in Maine I came to the conclusion I can't do anything about anything, so I'll just let what has to happen happen and if I live I live and if I don't I don't and I find it hard now to even think of missing my grandkids. I mean what I would have missed back there if I hadn't come back here and taken care of things, it's just astounding to me. I just wouldn't have wanted to miss it for the world. Not one of them.
Interviewer
You've gotten to be grandma over the years.
Yvonne King
I have. I've got seven of them now. The youngest is...he turned a year old January 16th and the one next to him is a little girl named Cameron - a little toe head with these big brown eyes that spent a week in newborn ICU up at LDS. When she was born she was preemie but she is the cutest little thing. She doesn't talk much, she took her time walking, she wanted everybody to carry her around but she just has this personality that's all hers. I just love her to death and Braxton the youngest one is just all his own person. He and his mom and dad came and had lunch with me last Thursday down at the office and he had a bottle of juice and I fed him some pizza and went to pour some juice in his mouth and I poured it too fast and it went running down him and he started laughing and I told him did I get you all wet? He laughed! I told him oh goodness Braxton, Grandma's sorry. So I tried it again and it went down his mouth again and he laughed even hard. Okay - I give up Braxton; mom's going to have to do it. But you know it’s things like that, it's seeing those kids smile and knowing how much that they've learned to love. It's everything.
Interviewer
And you're here for that?
Yvonne King
Yeah I'm here for that.
Interviewer
We were talking about a couple of different things earlier and one we were trying to get you care. We were calling around. What was that experience like first trying to call Medicaid - what was that experience like?
Yvonne King
Not unexpected actually. If I had been able to get through the first couple of times I would have been surprised. Usually anything to do with the state government like that you get thrown around in circles. That's why I had chuckled so hard because I had expected it but not to that extent. I didn't expect to go back to the first number I was given.
Interviewer
You probably weren't surprised you didn't qualify.
Yvonne King
No.
Interviewer
And why didn't you qualify?
Yvonne King
I make too much money now. See it was basically the same thing when my kids lived at home. My oldest daughter has MS and my son has Lupus and for me to cover them with Medicaid would have cost more than what my rent would have done.
Interviewer
So you're no stranger to this?
Yvonne King
No, I know firsthand.
Interviewer
How was the experience calling around trying to find a colonoscopy?
Yvonne King
It was a different kind of experience. It did give some hope; it really did to have one done. I will be honest with you, it’s not one of my favorite things, it's something I would just as soon pass on but I also recognize that life could depend on it.
Interviewer
It's important?
Yvonne King
Yeah very.
Interviewer
I just want to talk a little bit about the doctor and the office - Eugene's funny. Do you like working with him?
Yvonne King
Yes I do. I really do! He's been super nice to me, he really has.
Interviewer
And is it tough because you are working full time but you still can't get insurance?
Yvonne King
Yeah it is but it's no reflection on him. I don't know if people realize it but most physicians’ offices aren't equipped to offer medical insurance to their own staff. I've worked for a Urologist, I've worked for Orthopedic Surgeons and I found out that that is the case in just about every office.
Interviewer
It seems rather ironic.
Yvonne King
Doesn't it? It does to a certain extent. Now with Doctor Hawkins, he and I at one point in time he was going to try to help me find an insurance policy so that I could pay on it. He carries his own on he and his wife and told me, well maybe we can find a way for you to do it too. However, things have changed since then.
Interviewer
What's changed?
Yvonne King
His selling the office has changed that.
Interviewer
So what are you going to do?
Yvonne King
Look for work again. As much as I hate to I'm going to have to start all over again.
Interviewer
That's got to be tough.
Yvonne King
It is, this is the third business in less than a year that I've worked for for three months that has gone out of business. They have shut their doors.
Interviewer
You're unlucky.
Yvonne King
That's what I told somebody. I'm really beginning to feel like I'm bad luck. They tell me no, not necessarily so, it means you're a good employee" and told him "how do you figure that? And he said because you make it possible for them within three months to close their doors, I told him not in my books, that's not what that says to me.
Interviewer
Can you tell that story again?
Yvonne King
I will tell you, I called up the Huntsman Center...the company I worked for back in 2002; I paid for medical insurance for almost a year before they took it away from us and I thought well I have medical insurance so I'll call up Huntsman and see if they'll at least draw my blood. They can do a blood test to see if cancer has returned and I thought "I'll call them up and see if they'll do it and I called them up and they said as long as you have insurance but we won’t do just the blood tests, we want you to come in and we want to do this test and this test and this test and this test and I would have had to be hospitalized which means I wouldn't have had a way to pay for my insurance because I paid for it weekly out of my pay period and as soon as you missed a payment your insurance was dropped.
Interviewer
So even when you had insurance it didn't help.
Yvonne King
Yeah, I thought, you know I can win for losing here.
Interviewer
Tell me again that story about your bishop about how he thought he could help you.
Yvonne King
My bishop called me in; he called me aside in sacrament one day and told me, I want to talk to you. It's very serious and I need to speak with you. So I met with him in his office and he told me, I'm really astounded that you haven't had any further testing after having had your cancer. It's very important that you follow up on that. I told him it's because I've had no insurance and he says "well we're going to find a way", he says "I've got people working on it so we can find a way to get a colonoscopy done." And this has been probably six or seven months ago. He put people in charge of trying to find it and as of yet I haven't heard anything and everybody's just shaking their head going nobody will do it; we don't know what to do.
Interviewer
And your doctor also tried.
Yvonne King
Yeah my doctor at the clinic tried for over a year. He tried for over a year and then he finally called me. In fact it had been so long I actually thought he had forgotten and he called me up when I least expected it and told me, I'm really sorry, I was unable to find anyone to do the colonoscopy. Nobody is volunteering anymore. I went okay, at least you remembered, I thought you had forgotten.
Interviewer
I've had people say, "Why don't you go to the State High Risk Pool" or something like that. Have you checked into that?
Yvonne King
I don't know what that is.
Interviewer
The High Risk Insurance Pool. I think it's around 400 or 500 bucks a month.
Yvonne King
Whoa. You realized that even if I were to carry my own insurance...I spoke with some insurance adjusters that when it went back to their people who are management they can actually deny it because I have had cancer and I do have arthritis which ups the price to begin with. Both of them tried telling me that since you haven't had any incidents since 2000 we can actually say you're cured. I didn't tell them that I haven't had any examinations since then so I would assume the underwriters would take one look and say ha, has she had any testing done and chances are it would be denied. They would say it's too high risk, we won't do it. And as for paying 400 or 500 dollars a month for medical insurance, that's what I pay for rent. That's awfully steep to have to pay for just two bills.
Interviewer
You don't even own a car do you?
Yvonne King
Nope I don't.
Interviewer
Why not?
Yvonne King
I can't afford one. I go everywhere by bus or I call my kids and they take me when they can. I used to do it all alone. I'd take the bus even to go grocery shopping. I remember getting on the bus one day with about six or seven bags of groceries and had two bags of canned goods break and they went rolling all over the bus and people started collecting my cans of canned goods and some woman had a couple of extra bags in her handbag and she got them out and...I'd have to take it in increments. I would go from Albertson’s to across the street to the bus stop and then that would bring me downtown, I'd have to sit down and wait for a bus...but I'd pick them up and I'd go over here to the ABC Market on First Avenue, I'd rest for a minute then I'd start coming from over here, up the hill and up the stairs. I'd put the bags down and rest for a minute because my hands would get really sore.
Interviewer
That's difficult. I just wanted to go back to insurance and also you're not the only one in your family who's uninsured, it seems like some of your kids and your grandkids.
Yvonne King
Yes. I've got a daughter and son-in-law and three kids who are uninsured and I also have my son and his wife and their two kids. Steven was working at a job where he had just attained insurance and he was working a 5:00 am to 3:00 pm shift and his wife was working graveyards so that they didn't have to pay for daycare and Steven's company told him we're just going to keep you on days, so Crystal decided to change from graveyard to afternoon shift and the week that she changed someone at Steven's job quit that was working the afternoon shift. So they told him he would have to take the afternoon shift and he told them I can't, my wife...there's nobody to baby-sit the kids. They told him, well you either take the afternoon shift or you're fired. So they fired him and he lost his insurance. He spent a week and a half looking for work, he has found other work but he has taken three dollars and hour cut in pay, he has no medical insurance again.
Interviewer
Do you think they'd qualify for CHIP?
Yvonne King
I don't know. I think Nicole's kids qualify for CHIP. I don't know what the qualifications are.
Interviewer
It seems like a lot of this feels like you're just batting your head against the wall.
Yvonne King
I know. I bat it against the wall and stand back and think okay, there's got to be a way, let's try this option. That's what it feels like a lot. It really does. But I think if I had to choose between me and my grandkids and my kids having insurance I would prefer that they had it.
Interviewer
Do you think that you should have to have that choice?
Yvonne King
No. I wouldn't want that choice. I really wouldn't.
Interviewer
Do you ever think you'd be in this position of Grandma not knowing whether or not if you had cancer?
Yvonne King
No.
Interviewer
Explain that. Is it a surprise? Did you think this would never happen to me? Do you look at your situation and shake your head?
Yvonne King
Yeah I do a lot. I think, what am I going to do? I pray a lot. I get up in the morning I go through the house I do what I have to do. I go to work do what I have to do. I come home and do what I have to do then fall into bed at night exhausted and think well, I made it through another day. My dad used to tell us when I would go to leave his house, I would tell him, I'll see you tomorrow and he would always say, his response would always be, the good Lord willing. I never really took into account how right that really is until...it's just been the last couple of years. I thought, wow, he was a lot wiser than I had ever realized. It was almost as if he knew.
Interviewer
You laugh a lot but I imagine it's really painful at time not knowing.
Yvonne King
Sometimes it can be.
Interviewer
What' that like?
Yvonne King
It's sad. It's a hard place to be but I also recognize that I have to be able to see what it is that I'm capable of doing and what there is that I'm not capable of doing and the things that I'm capable of taking care of I can do to the best of my ability. Those things that are out of my control, there's nothing I can do about them.
Interviewer
And do you think there has to be a better way?
Yvonne King
Yeah I do. I really do. I think that Congress and a lot of people, the American people have to get together and come to terms with probably redoing the whole healthcare system because it's not just me. I spoke with a gentleman yesterday who pays 500 dollars a month for insurance just for he and his wife just in case and that's a lot of money. He says, "I don't know if I'll ever use it however it's got to be there." He says, "It's ridiculous, it's just ridiculous." There's a lot of people in the same situation. When you have to choose between a place to live, food on the table, transportation or medical insurance for something that could "happen or may or may not happen" what do you choose? What are your priorities? What do you put first? Because a lot of people are going through those options right now. I've seen it with my kids, I've seen it with strangers, I've seen it with people in the office, I've seen it with people that you meet...everyday people, everywhere. So I don't feel so alone. I can't feel all alone in that. My daughter's husband had an opportunity to get insurance but they wanted 500 dollars a month and the insurance wouldn't even cover the kids' required injections. She called me up and she says, "This is unbelievable. I can't pay this kind of money for something that's not going to cover anything." I told her I wouldn't do it.
Interviewer
Somebody might look at you and go "well this is insane, you need to take care of yourself. This is your life".
Yvonne King
I know this is my life and you know I appreciate ever day that I have of it but I also look at...it's hard to explain; I also look at quality and quantity. If I have to live for a long time and really suffer I wouldn't want that but to be able to live, even if it's for a short time and have it with fullness, that's more to me than anything else. I worked with people who were dying all the time and I would go into their homes and take care of them and I know how bad it can be. I worked with my mom when she was dying; I know how bad that can be too. So, in some respects quality is a lot better than quantity. In many respects as a matter of fact. Sometimes it's difficult to make the people who are around you who you really care about and who really care about you; it's difficult to make them understand that yes, I'd like to be around for the next...I keep telling them I'm going be around for 150 years. I joke with the grandkids, even when I'm not here I'm still going to be here - you have me no matter what because I'm not going to leave that easy.
Interviewer
That's good they can't get rid of you. I'm wondering though, my thinking is (and I know you said you have a hard time with this) you're 40,000 in debt, what's another 1300 to get a colonoscopy to know for sure?
Yvonne King
Because right now they want the money up front and it's very difficult to come up with that money up front. If you could do it in payments then yeah there's a possibility of it. And that 1300 dollars was about six years ago. I'm sure the price has gone up even more now. The testing was very, very expensive, extremely expensive.
Interviewer
So what does it mean if you can get a colonoscopy, if you find out you can get one?
Yvonne King
I'll do it. I won’t want to but I'll do it?
Interviewer
Why will you do it?
Yvonne King
Why will I do it? Just for peace of mind for everybody and if it turns out that cancer's back then I'll do what I have to do. Sometimes...I fought it once; another battle isn't the end of the world. It's not an easy thing, I will tell you I have never ever been as sick as what I was. There was like two years that my body didn't get any nutrition at all. I had a nurse tell me, you're lucky that you're even alive and that you're hearts functioning because none of your vital organs had any nutrition. But you know, that man upstairs just insists on keeping me here and that's okay. I don't have any qualms about that.
Interviewer
I just want to get clear on one last thing because I have asked you a number of times and I'm just trying to figure out the timeline. So you said something was wrong physically. You didn't know you had cancer but you knew something was wrong?
Yvonne King
I sensed that something was wrong back in '98 before I went back to Maine. I knew that something was wrong and I had a sneaking suspicion that it was cancer so I didn't say anything to anyone and I went back to Maine and then after I got back there I went there in...In fact I left here the fourth of July in '98 and by October I'd lost a lot of weight. Everything I ate went right through me. I thought it was just...I had this problem with spending money, I'd go to a store (I'm getting better) I can go to a store and because I had always been taught 'you do not spend money', I could go to the store to get towels and before I could get the checks done I'd get physically ill and have to go to the bathroom and go back and put the towels back and walk out of the store because I was just...that's just the way I was taught 'if you don't need it, if you don't have the money for it out front...' and I always felt like I didn't have the money. I just don't have enough to make it. If I do this then I have to take from this and that takes from my kids and that takes from...and I just couldn't do it. Even back in Maine I did it a couple of times, I'd get sick when I'd go to buy something and I told my sister "it's just me," you know the first couple of times "It's just me," we went shopping and "you know me, I get really physically ill when I have to go shopping." But it wasn't just the shopping; it was something that came around. At first it was every couple of days and then...well at first it was every couple of weeks and then it was a day or two ever week and then it got to where it was just about every time I ate by the time I left.
Interviewer
So you went from Maine and then you came back here and that's when you went and saw the doctor?
Yvonne King
I didn't actually see the doctor right away. I went into the cancer screening clinic and they told me that they thought that I did definitely have a tumor but they thought it was on my right ovary.
Interviewer
And then how long of a time passed until you actually got to see a doctor?
Yvonne King
Almost a full year before. I actually found a doctor that would take me in. His reasoning for it was, "I know that if the circumstances were turned that you would do the same thing for me that I am going to do for you." And I thought wow, I finally found somebody who really knows what he's doing' and really can see a situation.
Interviewer
Did you just think it was insane that you couldn't find a doctor for a year?
Yvonne King
Yes I did. I really did! Everyplace I called, everyplace I tried to go it was, "if you don't have medical insurance you just don't even bother." I didn't have work either, I just...it took me quite awhile to find anything other than just a few hours here and a few hours there and then after the surgery it was the same thing - a few hours here a few hours there working for temp agencies. It was very difficult. They told me at the hospital to plan on at least a full year recovery. I told them "oh no, not me. I'll be better in three months tops." It didn't work out that way. They were more right than I was.
Interviewer
Is there anything you want to add about this whole experience that you think people should know?
Yvonne King
I think people should realize that it really can be difficult for some people to actually obtain insurance and be able to go in and take care of situations that need to be taken care of. However, I still believe that it's not impossible. I think that it just takes a lot of time that sometimes a lot of people don't have however...I never give up hope. I probably should have a long time ago but I can't. I do think people need to come together and let Congress...I think they need to contact their Senators and their Congressmen and let them know. This isn't just a few people here and there; this is something that's a nationwide problem. It has become a nationwide problem in the last ten years.
Interviewer
You think it's critical?
Yvonne King
Yeah it is. It's very critical! So people really need to pay attention. It's something...it's one of those things like with cancer "oh it's never going to happen to me," but it does. It happens to everyday people and usually when you least expect it. Right?
Interviewer
It's true.
