Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SATURDAY, February 22, 1992 TAG: 9202220177
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: A-3 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: MARK MORRISON STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: CHAMBLISSBURG LENGTH: Long
HODGKIN'S SUFFERER'S TALE SADLY FAMILIAR
It's an old story by now, but one that Garry and Susan Ferris believe is worth repeating, if they have to. Until they raise enough money for Garry's cancer treatment, they say. Or until something is changed.The names are familiar: Lorraine Smusz, Sharon Davis and Sharon Tingler, all cancer patients needing a costly cancer treatment that their insurance companies wouldn't cover.
They went public with their struggles in hopes of raising enough money to pay for the treatment themselves and to raise awareness of an emotional issue that won't seem to go away.
Now add to the list Garry Ferris.
Suffering from Hodgkin's disease, he, too, needs an expensive bone-marrow transplant that his insurance company, Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Virginia, is refusing to cover. He, too, is asking for donations.
And like Smusz, Davis and Tingler before him, he is angry.
It shouldn't be left to the insurance companies to decide what treatments a person can have, argues Ferris, like his predecessors. Those decisions should be made by the doctors.
His story dates back to hunting season 1990. Ferris was walking through the woods and started feeling short of breath. Initially, he chalked it up to being out of shape and to the extra pounds he had added in the 10 years since his days as a college athlete.
So, he went on a diet and started exercising more regularly.
But the shortness of breath worsened to where it hurt him to breathe. He also developed a nagging cough. In his job as a cardiac technician in Roanoke, Ferris, 32, could no longer lift a stretcher without taking a brief rest afterwards. Nor could he climb a flight of stairs without taking a break halfway up. At night, he would soak his sheets with sweat.
"It just got to the point where I couldn't do nothing," he said. "Stuff I was used to doing myself I couldn't do anymore."
A chest X-ray revealed that he had Hodgkin's disease, a cancer that attacks the lymph nodes. He got the news on his birthday, Aug. 1.
Ferris, who lives in Chamblissburg in Bedford County, started conventional chemotherapy, covered under his Blue Cross policy with Roanoke City. He even bragged about how fast the insurance company responded to his claims.
By December, however, he had not responded to the treatment and had not gone into remission. His oncologist in Roanoke, Dr. Stephen Kennedy, next recommended Ferris undergo a different chemotherapy regimen and begin preparing for a bone-marrow transplant.
Kennedy referred him to the University of Nebraska Medical Center, the country's leading hospital in treating Hodgkin's disease with high-dose chemotherapy and bone-marrow transplants.
Ferris and his wife, Susan, decided on Nebraska after seeing horror stories in the media about other cancer patients refused similar treatments because of their "experimental" nature. They figured Nebraska's record - the center did nearly 100 transplants on Hodgkin's patients in the past year alone - would prevent Blue Cross from using the same argument again.
Blue Cross denied the claim anyway.
The company didn't say it was experimental, like it did with Lorraine Smusz in Fincastle, Sharon Tingler in Alleghany County and Sharon Davis of Ferrum in denying their breast cancer treatments.
This time, Blue Cross said Ferris didn't meet its criteria.
If his cancer would have gone into remission for a year first before he needed the bone-marrow treatment, then he would have been covered, Blue Cross said.
"How do they justify that?" Susan Ferris wants to know. Like many spouses of cancer patients too sick to fight and do fund-raising for themselves, she has taken the lead in pushing for answers and promoting her husband's cause.
"This again allows them to be both judge and jury," she said.
It is a question Dr. Phil Bierman at the medical center in Nebraska would like to know the answer to as well. "It doesn't make sense to me," he said in a telephone interview.
In fact, Bierman argued that with Ferris failing to respond to conventional treatment and not going into remission, it is that much more important to try a bone-marrow transplant. Bierman said it is his only chance.
Jim Goss, a spokesman for Blue Cross in Richmond, said the company's Hodgkin's policy is based on "generally accepted medical practices" and has never been questioned before.
He said Blue Cross believes patients need to show that they can withstand conventional radiation treatments and go into remission before undergoing anything more severe. As many as 10 percent of patients who have bone-marrow transplants die from the procedure itself.
"It's good to see that a person can stand the lower doses before he or she is bombarded with the higher dose," Goss said.
Meanwhile, Ferris has already had a bone-marrow harvest in preparation for his transplant, paying $4,000 out of pocket just as a deposit. The bill for the harvest came to more than $15,000.
He also has undergone the first of two high-dose chemotherapy treatments, which has made him feel sick. "This treatment has just zapped me," he said.
Ferris hasn't been able to work since early January. He runs a constant low-grade fever, a side-effect of the chemotherapy, and has bouts with nausea. Most days, he stays curled up on the sofa wrapped in an old blanket his mother knitted.
"I go from the bed to the couch. It gets pretty boring."
In addition, Susan Ferris has contacted Frank Smusz, Lorraine Smusz's husband, for fund-raising ideas. Faced with a bill expected to total about $150,000, she had no idea where to begin.
A year earlier, Frank Smusz helped raise nearly that much for Lorraine, and since then has become an active lobbyist in Richmond. He wants to see the law changed so that insurance companies can no longer deny people potentially lifesaving treatments.
Smusz persuaded Susan Ferris to tell her husband's story to a House insurance committee considering legislation that would have at least required insurance companies to cover high-dose chemotherapy and bone-marrow transplants.
The legislation, however, was sent to a special commission that is going to study the measure another year. Ferris vows to return to Richmond and repeat her husband's story anyway.
"This is something nobody should have to go through," she said.
Like Lorraine Smusz, Sharon Davis and Sharon Tingler, Garry Ferris now has a fund in his name: The Garry Ferris Cancer Fund, c/o N&W Federal Credit Union, P.O. Box 12288, Roanoke, Va. 24024. And he has a mid-April deadline for raising the money.
"That's the pitiful part about it," Susan Ferris said, concerned that people are tired of hearing such similar sob stories. "Nothing's changed. It's getting to be old hat."