new year, same aetna

Posted on January 2, 2016 by carla
A logo sign outside of a facility occupied by Aetna Inc. in Blue Bell, Pennsylvania.

A logo sign outside of a facility occupied by Aetna Inc. in Blue Bell, Pennsylvania.

UPDATE 1/42016:

NEW YEAR NEW SUCKITUDE. Spent over 30 minutes on muzak hold to get the Philippines where they know nothing, can’t help you and can only read a script. They land me another 30 minutes on hold until I get a stateside employee who tells me…wait for it…my policy was CANCELLED due to lack of payment. How is that even possible when you took money December 1 for the last month of OLD policy and December 22 for NEW policy. That woman who had no name got very flustered and said she would transfer me to another Aetna office and THAT call?  GOT DISCONNECTED. ‪#‎timetocallalawyer‬ ?
I have PROOF from my bank that they TOOK all payments OLD and NEW.
Mother f***ers. Now I am doing the do-se-do with the inane social media customer service…who will tell me once again how they can’t help.
I hope Mark Bertolini and Karen Lynch are enjoying their cushy salaries earned off the aggravation of their customers.

ORIGINAL POST:

New Year, same Aetna.  The phone rang ridiculously early this morning. It was my pharmacy, CVS calling about my Aetna benefits.

Oh sure, I said hold on, Aetna helpfully changed ALL their plans on ALL their insureds…again.

So we go over ALL the numbers on my card…none of them work which means (you guessed it) no new Tamoxifen prescription for me today.

My pharmacist says she’ll call Aetna and we ended our phone call.

I start going through my paperwork, to see if I missed a number.  I hadn’t. But they once again signed me up with automatic bill pay which on them I have never trusted. And besides I always pay on time and technically early so why do I have to have that, right?

So I jump on the “new and improved” Aetna website. First of all it is not in the least compatible with Internet Explorer. Only somewhat compatible with FireFox. The only browser that really works with it is Google Chrome.

Half the website doesn’t really go anywhere. It appears child-like simple but all aspects still do not work. Especially super frustrating? Their bill-pay “partner”. Partner is corporate speak for they subcontracted something. And the subcontractor doesn’t let you get into your actual account. When you transfer over from Aetna it LOGS YOU OUT! And that is all you get.

Aetna 1

No, no I actually did NOT log out. I do not want automatic bill pay. But nooooooo. I can’t look. Every time I mosey up to the “partner” I am logged out.

I see long drawn out phone calls in my future because I can’t change any information on the regular website for Aetna, not even a phone number.

I am so glad that we are under the Affordable Care Act. I still have yet to see anything other than extra layers to get what I want and need.

I do not feel Aetna and other major insurers are breast cancer friendly really. Because if they were not only would be coverage be easier, so would navigating their damn websites. And I am hardly a computer luddite.

Oh with new and improved Aetna because I have really good doctors in a really good health system it is now $150 every time I walk in the door to their offices. And as a breast cancer survivor under active treatment I still have lots and lots of appointments each year.

One good bit of Aetna news is I see some opposition finally to their proposed merger with Humana (which a lot of hospital systems and doctors do not accept because they are so awful). Click on hyperlink below for story.

Sun Sentinal: Physician groups oppose Aetna-Humana merger

Anyway, Happy New Year to all of you and may 2016 bring you the best year ever…except in the case of health insurance because I simply do not believe it is possible.

When is the day going to come when they reform the actual health insurance companies?

Posted in breast cancer, health insurance | Tagged , , , , , | 1 Comment

quoted on the current mammogram crisis in america

Posted on November 24, 2015 by carla

sheeple

shee·ple
SHēpəl/

noun

informalderogatory
plural noun: sheeple
people compared to sheep in being docile, foolish, or easily led.
“by the time the sheeple wake up and try to change things, it will be too late” 
 

I have never been accused of being among the sheeple. Certainly not when it comes to breast cancer. But many women, right or wrong are complacent about their health and what we deserve in as far as treatment as women living in the land of the free.

Recently I shared my thoughts with you my readers about how I felt about the American Cancer Society and their…ummmm…new views/guidelines on mammograms. As a matter of fact this has so disturbed me that I have written two posts on it to date.

I guess this post counts as three.

About ten days ago I was contacted by a reporter named Alicia Booth. She writes for LifeZette.

LifeZette‘s mission is contained in its moniker: Life. Explained. Each day the site captures the wonder, the complexity, the frustration and the joys of life in all its variety. It was started by radio personality Laura Ingraham.

Anyway, I gave Alicia a call and here we are. The article launched today. Below is an excerpt, and I hope you read the entire article.

Mammogram Miscues

Why confusion remains over changed guidelines

by Alicia Booth

The controversial and often confusing argument over when a woman should have her first screening mammogram has taken yet another turn. This turn, however, may lead to agreement.

The president of the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists is trying to streamline the medical community’s advice. Dr. Mark DeFrancesco announced he will be taking the lead in putting together what he called a “consensus conference” in January…..DeFrancesco also wrote the conference’s goal will be “to develop a consistent set of uniform guidelines for breast cancer screening that can be implemented nationwide.”

In the meantime, though, ACOG’s advice hasn’t changed.

“We still recommend annual screening for women starting at age 40, along with clinical breast exams,” he wrote.

In October, the American Cancer Society shook up the medical community by announcing that most women can start annual screenings at age 45, versus age 40, and every other year after the age of 55.

…One Chester County, Pennsylvania, survivor who blogs about breast cancer is especially concerned.

“If I hadn’t gotten mammograms, I could be dead, and that’s all that I kept thinking about when I saw that the guidelines had changed,” 51-year-old Carla Zambelli told LifeZette.

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boycott the american cancer society

Posted on October 20, 2015 by carla

finish-draft-1

I will not participate again in the American Cancer Society Great Valley Relay for Life. Not because of the stupid marketing ploy on adding the Main Line to Great Valley when we are Chester County but because of American Cancer Society screwing with ‪#‎mammogram‬ guidelines.

I am a survivor of Breast Cancer who might very well be dead if I had waited to start mammograms.

Women should ‪#‎boycott‬ the American Cancer Society. Like Susan G. Komen they forget why they are here.

I believe this is all because health insurance companies hate paying for preventative care like this and now health insurance companies all over this country will use this as an excuse to deny coverage.

Get your mammograms. Get them annually. Have breast exams. Do self-breast exams.  In a blink of an eye everything can change. I am living proof of this and a lot of my friends are as well.

That is all.

New Guidelines Push Back Age for Mammograms

American Cancer Society recommends women start having mammograms every year at age 45, instead of 40

By

Melinda Beck

The Wall Street Journal
CANCEL

Biography

Oct. 20, 2015 11:01 a.m. ET

In the long-running debate about when and how often women should be screened for breast cancer, it is increasingly clear that one recommendation doesn’t fit all.

CNN: New breast cancer guidelines: screen later, less often

By Elizabeth Cohen, Senior Medical Correspondent

Updated 5:46 PM ET, Tue October 20, 2015

Posted in breast cancer, health insurance | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , | 1 Comment

dear american cancer society,

Posted on October 17, 2015 by carla

This was in my e-mail this morning and well I find it disingenuous at a minimum.  I am actually  a little bit offended.

Ok, so not to put too fine a point on it, but I left the Main Line to move to Chester County. They are blessedly not one and the same, and I totally object (as a survivor of breast cancer who participated in this event) to Great Valley being lumped into the Main Line for some marketing schmaltz.

Shame on you!!

The Great Valley, for which the high school is named which hosts the event, has a fabulous history. And it is NOT on the Main Line. NOT even close.

This is actually enough to make me lose interest in the event. If the American Cancer Society can’t be proud that part of their event is held in  Chester County at Great Valley High School, why on earth would I want to participate ? It’s like the American Cancer Society is ashamed to say they hold part of this nationwide event in Chester County. 

It’s where I live. I am proud of where I live and most importantly as a survivor, Chester County has a much more agreeable quality of life for me as a survivor.

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this is reality, as in REAL breast cancer awareness

Posted on October 5, 2015 by carla

19270933214_93de62726c_oThe below message  in italics comes from a new friend.  She asked that her friends share this. She is someone I met recently for something else entirely and I found out  she lives with Stage 4 breast cancer.

She is not my only friend who lives with Stage 4  breast cancer.  These women are my heroes. They are also incredibly zen considering what they live with.

As a survivor they inspire me to be better.

So I am honored to pass along this message. This is why you #thinkbeforeyoupink during Pinktober and breast cancer awareness month.  Message runs BELOW this photo. This is brave to me.

 

12106700_10208011903322040_5333718421574705882_n

Well, it’s “Pinktober”/ National Breast Cancer Awareness Month & I am emboldened (see photo). This is part of what Stage 4 breast cancer looks like for me.

I write now from my weekly chemotherapy chair and in half an hour I travel down to Philly for my daily cutting-edge radiation treatment at Penn.  At some point I will likely experience brain, liver, and further bone metastases, along with the pain I contend with. I will be in treatment for the rest of my life, however long that may be…. I hate October.

As a mother, sister, aunt, cousin, sister-in-law, daughter-in-law, friend, I would URGE you all to support research into PREVENTION this month vs. finding a pink ribbon “cure.”

We are doing something terribly, terribly wrong: 1 in 8 women will develop breast cancer in her lifetime.

Let’s work on the CAUSE end of things.

Of the 596 current breast cancer studies, only 22 are looking into PREVENTION.

And of course clinical trials are looking to drugs to treat the disease & extend life. Beneath the shawl in the photo is an area of aggressive skin metastases and a mastectomy scar which I will not share.

PLEASE help to keep my daughter, my nieces, my sister, sisters-in-law, cousins, friends from struggling through this devastating disease. This month I will be looking for and suggesting to you places to donate toward research into PREVENTION.

Please give generously and honor the future of those women and young women closest to my heart.

Thank you so.

 

maya1

 

Posted in breast cancer, health insurance | Tagged | 3 Comments

and zoom! #pinktober returns

Posted on September 30, 2015 by carla

pink roses

In June I marked my four year cancerversary.  The other day I marked four years since the completion of treatment.

I have had four years to get used to the onslaught of PINKTOBER and all the  ungodly pink products that really don’t raise money for anything other than temporarily pink corporate America.

I haven’t gotten used to it and I was speaking to yet another survivor last week who dreads #Pinktober too. As a matter of fact I have not in four years met a survivor who was  super excited over #Pinktober.  No matter how the survivor feels about being open or closed about their breast cancer, they all agree that #Pinktober makes them nauseous.

As survivors, previvors, and those going through treatment currently we are not defined by things like crappy pink rubber bracelets. We are defined by ourselves. This disease is part of our reality, but it does not define us as individual women.

So don’t wear or buy pink for me and for others, get yourself educated on the disease called breast cancer.

  • Get your mammograms.

  • Educate your daughters, mothers, aunts, nieces,  friends, men.  

  • Donate to responsible charities (which P.S. don’t EVER cold call you on your home phone!).

  • Keep up the pressure to Washington D.C. so all women get GOOD coverage, not just some bare minimum that causes as much stress as NOT having insurance.

  • Keep up the pressure to Washington, D.C. for reforms to big pharma and health insurance companies.

     

#ThinkBeforeYouPink

Last years I posted what I am about to post again. Live it. It’s the #truth

IMG_1766

Now ONE #Pinktober thing I will post is something I received from BreastCancer.org – My Radiation Oncologist Dr. Marisa Weiss is on The Today Show tomorrow. That is one of the women responsible for saving my life and getting me cancer free.

pinktober

Some of the strongest women I know have survived, previved, and live daily with breast cancer. Everyday, amazing women. Some others have lost their fight, but their will to live lives on in all of the rest of us. I choose to honor all these women by doing my best to live a good life….and not succumb to fake pinkness.

Anyway, that is all from me on the eve of yet another #Pinktober .   I wish I could be a more cooperative survivor and embrace it, but knowing it looms only makes me want to pull the quilt over my head. But I won’t….but I won’t be bringing home pink wheat thins, either.

 

#THINKBEFOREYOUPINK

 

I will leave you with this quote:

 

“The best protection any woman can have … is courage.” – Elizabeth Cady Stanton

Posted in breast cancer, health insurance | Tagged , , , | 4 Comments

not so subliminal message to ignore breast cancer?

Posted on August 21, 2015 by carla

  
All our lives since we developed breasts, we are told to self check, have mammograms and above all else swiftly deal with breast cancer. But of course, along comes a study basically telling us in my opinion to play Russian Roulette with our lives.

New York Times: Doubt Is Raised Over Value of Surgery for Breast Lesion at Earliest Stage

By GINA KOLATAAUG. 20, 2015

As many as 60,000 American women each year are told they have a very early stage of breast cancer — Stage 0, as it is commonly known — a possible precursor to what could be a deadly tumor. And almost every one of the women has either a lumpectomy or a mastectomy, and often a double mastectomy, removing a healthy breast as well…..

…..Diagnoses of D.C.I.S., involving abnormal cells confined to the milk ducts of the breast, have soared in recent decades. They now account for as much as a quarter of cancer diagnoses made with mammography, as radiologists find smaller and smaller lesions. But the new data on outcomes raises provocative questions: Is D.C.I.S. cancer, a precursor to the disease or just a risk factor for some women? Is there any reason for most patients with the diagnosis to receive brutal therapies? If treatment does not make a difference, should women even be told they have the condition?

……The stakes in this debate are high. Karuna Jaggar, executive director of Breast Cancer Action, an education and activist organization, said women tended not to appreciate the harms of overtreatment and often overestimated their risk of dying of cancer, making them react with terror.

“Treatment comes with short- and long-term impacts,” Ms. Jaggar said, noting that women who get cancer treatment are less likely to be employed several years later and tend to earn less than before. There are emotional tolls and strains on relationships. And there can be complications from breast cancer surgery, including lymphedema, a permanent pooling of lymphatic fluid in the arm.

“These are not theoretical harms,” Ms. Jaggar said

Ok I was not stage “0”. I was stage 2, yet still considered “early” . Once I got my diagnosis I wanted this stuff out of my body. I could no more have lived with this in my body at any stage. 

Studies like this or like the studies that say women don’t really need that many mammograms or Pap smears are irresponsible to women’s’ health initiatives . Studies like this terrify me, because they are an excuse for the insurance companies to run with denying women treatment. Can you imagine being told you have an early stage cancerous tumor and being told by your doctors as a result to wait yet you want it out ? Or being told as a result by your insurance company that having a tumor removed is an elective surgery so they won’t cover the surgery or treatment after? Isn’t this just another way of removing a woman’s right to choose?

 And that is the reality of the world in which we live in the United States: you have to fight for everything with your insurance company. They will give in on certain areas not given on others. If you have anything that resembles a robotic or laparoscopic surgery they expect you to jump off the operating table and run out of the door. You get treated for breast cancer, yet they won’t pay for the creams with your proven to alleviate pain and discomfort during radiation. You have to fight to get tests like bilateral breast MRIs. (As if anyone’s going to put themselves into a noisy whirring coffin because they have nothing better to do .)

I agree with some aspects of the article concerning reduced employment, earning less money, and emotional tolls and strains, and even lymphedema. I have at different times experiencd all of the above except for the lymphedema post breast cancer. But again, I could have not have ignored this. I can’t imagine being told you have any stage of breast cancer and then being told just to sit with it in your body and watch it. 

Some people opt against any form of cancer treatment. Some people opt for the surgeries but then don’t want radiation or breast cancer medicinal therapies (like Tamoxifen or aromatese inhibitors). But I have never met a woman that undergoes any form of breast cancer treatment willy-nilly. So to put out a study that says “let’s wait and see” terrifies me. Again it is potentially removing our rights to choose.

Breast-cancer strikes at the very core of your femininity. That is very true.     There are a lot of days where to say I feel unlovely and betrayed by my own body are an understatement. But I am alive. And I do not feel I would have been in an overall positive life position had I ignored my lump and my doctors said it was nothing to worry about.

Breast cancer changes everything, but the changes aren’t all bad. In a weird way it was so good for me because it freed me to literally live my life better. But if I had to do it all over again I would do it the same. And I definitely would not ever have adopted the attitude of “wait and see”, or been satisfied with doctors who adopted that attitude.

I really wish they would spend more money on study that found a cure or improved treatment, not basically fund studies to give insurance companies and hospital systems an excuse not to treat women with breast cancer. Because at the end of the day that’s what  the study says to me. I also do not care for the way the New York Times in a sense seems to support this position. I almost wondered a first if this was an article or an opinion essay.

Thanks for stopping by.

Posted in breast cancer, health insurance | Tagged , , , , , , , | 2 Comments

surviving beautifully

Posted on August 11, 2015 by carla

surviving beautifully

So today started with a call from Aetna. Did I understand the nature of their recent letter? As in they are cancelling my current plan at the end of this year so I will have to choose a new one? Yes. The customer service representative who placed the call was super pleasant but I am still not pleased that I have to ride the choose-a-plan-merry-go-round again with Aetna after last year’s horror show.

Then I continued to go about my day and the mail arrived.  In it was a copy of a book I participated in called Surviving Beautifully by Victoria Tillotson and Lana Koifman . YAY!!!  After all their years of hard work, here it is!

Victoria is someone I met as I was beginning my breast cancer journey.  I periodically filled out questions she shot around to women she knew in various stages of treatment as she and Lana wrote the book and developed the wonderful website by the same name, Surviving Beautifully. (I also know Victoria as an amazing jewelry designer – you can find her on Etsy as Chic Metal!)

Anyway you can buy the book Surviving Beautifully on Amazon. You can buy the paperback as I did, or get a Kindle edition.

Getting through breast cancer is no small feat.  It is hard and what we go through as women on any number of levels can be more difficult than we ever let on.  Simple things like how you feel or how your hair feels even if it isn’t falling out are huge to those of us who have gone through treatment.

You have no idea how blah or unattractive you can feel until you have gone through breast cancer treatment.  It strikes at the core of our femininity like an itch that can’t always be scratched.  And me personally? I felt guilty and still do every time I deal with any of these feelings. I feel guilty because I am alive to complain, so that leaves me conflicted at the same times when I feel like crap for whatever reason.

This book is a nice practical, sympathetic, educational, and real voice in the wilderness of breast cancer books. I believe in the authors and Victoria in particular has been a supportive friend to me throughout my journey.

I will close by saying I wish this book and The Pink Moon Lovelies: Empowering Stories of Survival by another dear friend Nicki Boscia Durlester (which I also participated in) had been available to me when I was beginning this journey.  I participated in both of these book projects as a result of my cancer because I believe in paying it forward to those who come after me. 

Let me be abundantly clear however: I  do NOT  profit in any way from either of these books.  I am a part of each project because they are terrific and I believe in the authors and their mission to better the lives of cancer patients, especially breast cancer gals.

 

 

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oh joy. (not)

Posted on July 14, 2015 by carla

pink day lilyWarning: I am going to whine and piss and moan and complain. If you can’t handle that, stop reading NOW.

I am on a brief I-hate-Tamoxifen pity party of one.

No, I am not going to stop taking it, I like living.  But for all the good this drug does, there are times when it just sucks.

Like now.

I am tired of sitting at my desk or being out somewhere and I just start to sweat. Hot flashes of hellish proportions which leave me feeling like a damp wash cloth.

Miscellaneous joint pain sometimes.

And sleepus interruptus a good part of the time.

And have I mentioned the occasional and bizarre food cravings?

And of course the emotional and other brain functions things? I can be feeling fine and then it is like I am emotionally paralyzed…for no reason.  Or I have days where no matter what I do I just can’t concentrate and complete tasks at hand.

This is not all of the time but when it happens, it’s draining.  I am hopefully at the end of one of these jags. It has been about a week, maybe a little longer.  This little jaunt has been particularly bad. It’s July, so who in their right mind wants to sweat more?

And my patience is at zero and I feel crappy.

This too shall pass and eye on the prize is I continue to be really, really lucky.

But Tamoxifen? I won’t be missing you when my sentence is up.

And PS did I mention the letter from Aetna which says (and I quote):

Your health insurance with Aetna is ending on December 31, 2015.

We value our customers.  We want to help you understand your health plan options for 2016.

Aetna Life Insurance Company (Aetna) will no longer offer individual health products in the state of Pennsylvania effective January 1, 2016, but health plans will still be available from Aetna Life Insurance Company’s affiliate, Aetna Health Inc,

AGAIN Aetna? F-ing again? Really? It took me until March to get it all straightened out, which means I am paying already for a year I will not have had full use of. And now I get to do it again. Obamacare is a hot mess.

Here is some news on Aetna:

Aetna jumping ship in DC market

The nation’s capital is losing an insurance company on its exchange. It’s a trend consumers will likely see in other exchanges, says one health policy researcher.

According to The Washington Post, The Daily Caller and other news outlets, Aetna will no longer offer insurance plans on DC Health Link, aka the Washington, DC, health insurance change

Aetna plan to buy Humana under review. Deal would create No. 2 insurer in U.S.

 Regulators in Pennsylvania and 17 other states will scour health insurer Aetna’s plan to buy rival Humana, looking for signs the proposed merger might drain competition, the Pennsylvania Insurance Department said Monday.

Hartford, Conn.-based Aetna Inc. announced July 3 it would buy Humana Inc. for about $37 billion in cash and stock. The deal would create the second-largest domestic health insurer by membership, with more than 33 million people covered.

But the companies need approval from the U.S. Department of Justice, which will rely in part on state regulators to evaluate how the acquisition might affect policyholders and regional insurance markets. Regulators in Kentucky, where Humana maintains its Louisville headquarters, will lead the state-level evaluation, according to the Pennsylvania Insurance Department.

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people magazine tabloidizes breast cancer

Posted on July 2, 2015 by carla

  

See that vision in leather, fake balloon boobs, and spandex with hair extensions? Her name (and it’s not her stage name apparently) is Amber Marchese. She is one of Bravo’s “Real Housewives” of New Jersey which except for The Real Housewives of Orange County is the most absurdly cartoonish of the franchise.

Anyway, as an insult (in my opinion) to women fighting this disease everywhere, People Magazine has made this woman a new voice and face of breast cancer.

I now feel under-dressed that I did not wear my good leather to radiation.

What a total and utter contrast to how TV Chef and domestic partner of New York Governor Adrew Cuomo Sandra Lee has handled sharing her cancer news and subsequent double mastectomy!  Sandra Lee has handled all of this with grace and style and has discussed the soup to nuts of breast cancer with dignity, intelligence, and good writing skills.

Then there is Amber, who not only does breast cancer survivors and patients a disservice, but women in New Jersey as well. Except I will admit the ex wife of one of my best friend’s boyfriends behaves like she rolls with this chick. (But I digress)

So which came first here, the chicken or the egg? Did People Magazine put out a call for additional “celebrity” breast cancer cases, or did her agent  shop her story out ? Sorry but I am a little too jaded to believe in coincidence here. Someone like this isn’t telling their story for the good of man and woman kind, they are telling the story because there’s a profit margin to be made. This Amber has had breast cancer before so maybe I would have found her more believable had she on her own shared her cancer story as  you know,  something that isn’t underwritten by a major magazine?

As my friend Nicki said:

“No mention of genetic testing/counseling. With a father with pancreatic cancer, concerned about paternal side inheritance of BRCA mutation. Also had second bout of breast cancer after have a bilateral mastectomy for initial diagnosis .”

My breast cancer group, which is an international group of very diverse women is pretty much (thus far based on who has read it) agog in not such a positive way over this and not in a good way.  Generally speaking, because this woman now (because of a tabloid magazine and reality show franchise) becomes the new face of a disease that is not tabloidesque or cartoonish in the least. 

She’s had cancer before. There is family history and I get that how you deal with this is a personal choice, but why no mention of BRCA with BART arm testing? 

So I have slogged through her blog posts and all its literary finery (and why is hell capitalized??? Is it the name of the new town in New Jersey or something?)

… the test began, I was in complete control. I was good, totally dialed in. It started off easy: I heard tapping noises that wasn’t too terrible at all. I was softly praying “Our Father” and “Hail Mary,” and I was chugging along. I do not know why, but things took a turn for the worse – and I mean fast! …..I could not take it any longer. I yelled for the technicians, but there was nothing, no response! I lay for a little longer and then began yelling again, but again nothing! Now I was completely panicking. I started pressing the button once, then twice and then repeatedly pressed the button until my thumb was raw. I did not stop. I started screaming and yelling for them to get me the Hell out of there!

And then things like this:

Amber Marchese’s Blog: Cancer ‘Is Not My Reality’
Amber Marchese, star of The Real Housewives of New Jersey , is blogging about her second battle with cancer for PEOPLE. After surviving breast cancer in 2009, she discovered a lump, which turned out to be cancerous, in her right breast in April. Marchese will share updates on her treatment and how she is coping with this second round of the deadly disease with prayer, a positive outlook and the help of her family……Over the last few weeks, some days I was wracked with fear, others I glided through with no issues, almost as if my diagnosis was just an episode on TV. Seriously, this is not my reality. 
…..I did, however, slow down attending church, stopped praying as much and certainly did not pray the Rosary or a Novena in many years….Although the words came out of my mouth that I am a Catholic, I did not have God in my life as much as I should have. I knew in my heart I had wandered from my path, even despite my first bout with breast cancer and feeling God’s miracle once before. 
….I want to hear from you! As always, although I may not be able to answer all of you, I do read each and every one of your comments. If you have any questions or comments that you need to ask me, email me at ambermarcheseBC@gmail.com. 
See you next week and feel free to contact me on Facebook, Twitterand Instagram. 
God bless each and every one of you, 
Amber

Umm as a fellow Catholic girl I raise an eyebrow…maybe two over the whole Novena and Rosary of it all. If she was so concerned for her immortal soul, umm why is she a chief strumpet and bottle washer on a reality show where she often curses bleep, bleep, bleep like a sailor on television? It’s holier if you are making buckets of money?

Hey it’s her life and it  isn’t  as if she is the first “housewife” to have made money on her brand off of one of these TV shows. You have ones that cook, write cookbooks, try to sing, design clothes, promote toaster ovens in pasties, strip on television, and consider themselves Broadway “stars”. 

What I’m saying is a lot of these women are very entrepreneurial in a public sort of way, but monetizing breast-cancer never sits right with me. Sandra Lee and Angelina Jolie have used their celebrity for good in the fight against breast cancer and seem genuinely interested in seeing women get the best treatment  and best breast education possible. 

But Amber Marchesese? Not so much in my opinion. This woman uses her Catholocism as a convenient religious prop like a television preacher (or a Duggar, take your pick) and I can’t help but feel that this entire thing is a stunt to build  her “brand” and monetize her breast cancer while  People Magazine tabloidizes it.  

If she had just started blogging about it under the radar without fanfare and then People picked up maybe I wouldn’t have such a problem – but this whole thing smacks as designed for reality TV and an extra paycheck. Breast cancer is very real and not in a reality television show kind of way.

Just so we are clear I do not wish this Amber Marchese ill, I just find the timing suspect and the whole thing contrived like she is the front woman for the next season of the Real Housewives of New Jersey on Bravo.

It would be nice if she did something like donated a percentage of her fees she much be earning from People Magazine to a reputable breast cancer charity, or even back to the hospital where she is being treated to help other women who are less fortunate and could use the help through treatment. In other words,  use her celebrity more for good versus what feels like straight personal gain. 

And if Bravo  uses this as part of their storyline, one would hope they would donate part of their profits to well a place like the Cancer Hospital of NJ at Robert Wood Johnson in North Jersey. They are amazing there and I actually had a woman who works for that institution talk to me as one of the first people who spoke to me when I was newly diagnosed and she was amazing and I will never forget it. Come to think of it it would be really good sign of People Magazine   made a donation to someplace like that. After all, this  will sell them a lot of magazines.


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