Saving a Life:
A First Person Testimonial
I want to start by saying that having PinnacleCare involved in my wife’s care made all the difference and is the chief reason she is with us today. Many businesses make bold claims about their ability to deliver a certain platform of services, but in the end few truly do. PinnacleCare however, exceeded our expectations in so many ways and made all the difference at the most crucial time of our lives.
My wife was diagnosed with cervical cancer 13 years ago, which was remediated by surgery. Since then, she had been in remission. A scan done in December 2005 revealed that the cancer had come back and spread to an ominous level. My wife had a massive abdominal tumor and several smaller tumors. Furthermore, they were intertwined with her arteries and veins.
As anyone would do, we immediately sought out the top doctors, getting names and referrals. We saw and decided to work with the top doctor at a very good regional hospital in Philadelphia. His feedback to us offered little hope. We continued to use the web to find all the information we could but the situation remained grim. In February the surgeon in Philadelphia performed a debulking procedure and afterwards indicated he had gone as far as he could go. What remained were three tumors that he did not remove since they were in delicate areas. His opinion was that chemotherapy was usually not very effective in these types of recurrent cancers and that further surgery was not an option.
We were trying to stay on top of everything and doing all we could to find additional strategies, procedures, or doctors that could help. We are blessed with an extensive network of friends and contacts around the world, many of whom suggested all manner of remedies and treatment options. We did get some very good recommendations. All of this though was a great deal to handle and we knew we needed a professional helping hand to evaluate these and other options. My father-in-law suggested we learn more about and locate a medical concierge service. We tracked down PinnacleCare via the web and were impressed with the concept of what they could offer. PinnacleCare’s website was the most professional and easy to understand. Eventually, my family elected to turn over the role of my wife’s advocate to PinnacleCare. We told our Advocate Team what we had learned, what recommendations we had received, and told them that we wanted to take an aggressive approach.
From this point, PinnacleCare and primarily our incredible PinnacleCare Advocate took over the day to day and in fact minute to minute running of this complex situation. Everything from checking out numerous doctors to gathering together all the relevant medical records to things as challenging as researching and establishing contacts with clinics in Switzerland were all handled by our PinnacleCare contact. Not only was our burden lifted in terms of administering a very, very complex set of tasks relating to all of my wife’s medical issues, but more importantly we finally felt as if we were exhausting all resources and options currently available to bring her back to health. This is no small statement to make, and if you are in a serious medical situation you know everyone wants to make sure no stone is left unturned in the effort to achieve a positive result. With PinnacleCare, we finally felt like someone, and an entire organization, were focused on that result. It is hard to put a price on such a feeling.
PinnacleCare identified a great cancer specialist at Johns Hopkins Hospital, Dr. Bristow, whom my wife was comfortable with. We elected to move her coverage to Johns Hopkins and Dr. Bristow. His approach was more open minded and not confined to the normal set of therapies for this type of recurrent cancer. After completing six rounds of chemotherapy there was evidence of some modest shrinkage in the tumors. At this point the team at Johns Hopkins elected to conduct a surgery, which was ultimately successful. With an oncologic team and a vascular team and a very complex procedure, the tumors were removed. We were completely stunned at the positive result.
My wife went through more intense, extremely debilitating chemotherapy after this surgery. The time starting with the first chemotherapy treatment, through the second successful surgery, to the last chemotherapy, spanned seven months. Consistently during that time our PinnacleCare advocate was there for us. Setting up appointments, sending records in advance so the doctor would have them beforehand, calling us often to talk things through and be there for us at every single step of the way were just some of the things we grew to rely on. We never could have possibly gotten through this and gotten every thing done without our Advocate and PinnacleCare’s help. There are at least two dozen individual examples of our Advocate saving the day when we were in a time of need during emergencies that time doesn’t allow repeating. When our Advocate wasn’t available, her back up was. A flawless performance.
My wife’s last CAT scan showed that the cancer was gone and she was finally in remission. In the end what PinnacleCare had done was take over the medical oversight and administrative aspects of this complex, demanding “campaign,” and got us the best medical advice that anyone could expect to get. Importantly, we were comfortable that every treatment option was examined and evaluated on my wife’s behalf by our Advocate and the group at PinnacleCare. The collective group of people concerned with her wellbeing including our families, friends and business associates set a very high bar for our expectations of what a medical concierge could do, but PinnacleCare surpassed it.
PinnacleCare has lots of resources, in-house medical research, a renowned Medical Advisory Board, medical records consolidation. To say that we availed ourselves fully of all of it is an understatement.
My wife is now feeling great. This past holiday season, we and our twin 3 ½ year-old children rode in a tractor on a farm to track down and cut a Christmas tree. I know she would not be with us if it were not for PinnacleCare.
