The Colon Club

Hockey69 wrote:
Hi zephyr,

I am going to see dr drewes in early August for my lung mets as well. Would it be ok if I had your contact info as well? Just want to ask you how it went ect and if I am bringing my wife how the guest house is?

Thanks!

Sure, I'll send you an email through the Board in a few minutes.

I'm interested in LAPM surgery as well, after reading about it on Facebook. I'm located in the U.S. I've got mets in both of my lungs, all 4 lobes. (I think I have around ten mets...maybe twelve). I've heard that some people have had luck with American insurance companies paying out of network. Can anyone shed any light on that? Has anyone had a good experience getting reimbursed by insurance? Without, this will cost $50k, and I'm not sure I can afford it.

zephyr wrote:

stevieb wrote:So happy for you zephyr! Hope all does well and a speedy recovery. Which Dr. did your surgery?

Dr. Kern did my right lung and Dr. Drewes did my left lung. Dr. Drewes was ill at the time of the first surgery so Dr. Kern took over. They are both beyond wonderful!

Stevieb: if you don’t mind sharing, would you mind PMing me more information about what you wrote to your insurance company? I obviously didn’t get pre-approval and don’t have a lot of hope but it’s a lot of money and worth a shot.

Sophy: if you happen to see this, Cindy (PT) and Carla (nurse) are still there. What treasures. They remember and speak well of you.

Anyone who would like more information, please free to PM me. I’m so happy to be part of the LAPM club.

Hi Zephyr,

Can you PM me the details as well, my husband is currently on chemo Folfiri + Avastin but lung nodules cannot be radiated coz too many and too small. Thank you soo much!
Hope to hear from you soon!

prayingforccr wrote:I contacted, and sent my scans to Dr Drewes in June of 2021.

At the time, he could not help me because of the small size of many of the nodules.

My feeling now, is to undergo sbrt/immunotherapy combination, then revisit Dr Drewes after completing systemic therapy.

My biggest fear is recurrence of the primary for which there is no treatment for me.

Scans on Monday.

Results on Tuesday.

Hoping for the best, but expecting some really bad news based on my latest bump up in cea.

Hi Prayingforccr,

Will you be able to give me the details on how you contacted Dr Drewes? Im thinking of sending my Husband’s latest CT scan and see what he thinks. Thanks so much!

Hoping for good results on Tuesday !

prayingforccr wrote:I contacted, and sent my scans to Dr Drewes in June of 2021.

At the time, he could not help me because of the small size of many of the nodules.

My feeling now, is to undergo sbrt/immunotherapy combination, then revisit Dr Drewes after completing systemic therapy.

My biggest fear is recurrence of the primary for which there is no treatment for me.

Scans on Monday.

Results on Tuesday.

Hoping for the best, but expecting some really bad news based on my latest bump up in cea.

Thanks prayingforccr ! I got the contact info, just wondering how small are your nodules that Dr Drewes cannot perform the LAPM, i thought i saw in one of the post that if its too small they can just vaporize it.

zephyr wrote:

Hockey69 wrote:
Hi zephyr,

I am going to see dr drewes in early August for my lung mets as well. Would it be ok if I had your contact info as well? Just want to ask you how it went ect and if I am bringing my wife how the guest house is?

Thanks!

Sure, I'll send you an email through the Board in a few minutes.

Hi zephyr,


we got a Go from Dr Kern might be going next month or April, do you mind if I get your contact info as well just want to ask some details about going there and what to expect. Thanks in advance.

Hockey69 how did it go? hope everything went well!

I’ve emailed Dr Drewes several times with no response.
Has he stopped practicing?

Hi tcross, my scans are there also with no word yet.
I first talked with Dr. Drews and he let me know he reviewed scans sent however one was missing, the very important PET/CT scan. So, got that to him thru dropbox app 9 days ago. Dr, Drews sent me over to Dr. Kern. Dr. Kern called to let me know he got the scan for review 9 days ago. Nothing but silence on their end since. I am going to call about 4-5am tomorrow morning to see whats up.

I actually just found a response on 1/30 in my spam folder from Dr Drewes.
I’m going to send my scans over to him soon.

Thanks for the reply and I’d be curious what you’re told.

For what it's worth, Dr. Drewes and Kerns are both outstanding. Dr. Kern did my first lung surgery because Dr. Drewes was on leave. When they asked me if I wanted to go ahead or wait for Drewes, I also learned that Dr. Kern practiced for several years alongside Dr. Rolle, who developed the procedure. Dr. Kern found and removed a nodule that a thoracic surgeon here told me would be almost impossible to locate and remove because it was so small. But Dr. Kern got the job done. Dr. Drewes did my second surgery and everything went as well as I'd hoped. I was told by another patient there that when they do this procedure there are always at least 2 surgeons in the room (actually, I think he may have said 3 surgeons). The reason I'm posting this is just to let people know that whether you hear from Dr. Drewes or Dr. Kern, you're in good hands. They are both outstanding surgeons.

(((zephyr))) I miss talking with you! I lost your contact. Email me somtime pretty please.
thank you for the info about Rolles. Greatly appreciated!