Hi again
I was wondering if anyone knew if you can get travel insurance to USA shortly after diagnosis? I was diagnosed 3 weeks ago and Drs told me to cancel our Florida holiday with the kids. Yesterday another dr when filling out our insurance claim said I would be fit to travel again in 3 months. The kids were devastated when we had to cancel and I would love to maybe go towards end of year beginning of next year is this too soon for travel insurance companies?
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Insurance for travel to usa
Let me first wish you all the best - the start of the CML journey is daunting and you will have lots of thoughts, especially for your kids and all your feelings towards them, so take your time to settle in to the routine. As time goes on, and things settle down, it gets easier but you need time now just to deal with diagnosis and getting the CML under control.
And welcome to the knotty world of CML and insurance... I think the answer is it is too soon to be able to say whether insurance will be OK but once you are cleared to travel by your doctor you should be basically OK, with a caveat or two. And as always it depends on the insurers.
Key point: no insurer will cover you at all for travel against doctors' advice, even if any claim is unrelated to your condition, so it's advisable to wait until expressly cleared before considering booking travel. Being so recently diagnosed however, you and your doctor won't know for sure for a few weeks at least, and probably a few months, that all is going well enough for you to be cleared to travel, and where to. For me, it turned out fine by 3 months, as I am sure it will for you, and I took my first post diagnosis holiday 5 months after diagnosis (to Spain - I didn't want to go long haul for a bit but that was personal choice not necessity). I also made sure that before I booked any travel in the first year that I got my consultant's express OK - I don't trust insurers!
The other thing to note is that many insurers will not cover pre-existing medical conditions at all, ever. What that means is that if you have to claim because of your CML (as opposed to some other cause), even if cleared for travel, you can't with those insurers. The detail is in the policy, as always, but now you know what to look for.
Some insurers, like my own, will cover pre-existing cancer generally but only once you have been in complete remission for at least a year. You won't obviously be able to say that until probably at least two years from now, so not much you can do about that. My own insurance probably now covers any CML related problems too but I say probably because while I am in CMR and have been for over a year, and my marrow likewise "clear", I have no real faith in what insurers consider "complete remission".
Is this a big deal? I looked at quotes for new companies expressly to cover it and they asked truly ignorant questions and gave huge quotes, so I canned the idea of moving. To be frank though, I think that if I were in the situation where a CML type problem might arise on holiday I would know it well in advance of booking anything and probably wouldn't be travelling far anyway. My own attitude therefore is that being "covered for CML" is probably not terribly necessary because if the CML is at all likely to be an issue I either won't be thinking of travelling or won't care about being insured!
Thanks for your advice I had thought myself would probably be a year or so but the dr did plant a seed in my head and I'm trying to fill my head with other things apart from cml at the minute which is very hard! Did it take you long to get to CMR?
I have used Rothwell & Towler twice now. They treat you individually and have a nurse they refer cases to. I paid for a family policy £129.00 for two weeks for a carribean cruise and I have just contacted them again for a spanish holiday for a week and they charged £77.00 for a family policy 0845 9080171
Hi Lyndsey
Fully agree it's good to think about other things - and do things you want to do. It does get easier over time - for me, the initial six weeks or so were the hardest but as things started to go as advertised and my response was good with no serious ill effects, while not becoming over confident I did feel better and got into a routine that worked well for me.
I've been very fortunate in that I reached CMR in about 5 months. That's very quick and it usually takes rather longer than that, and not everyone gets quite that far, but the vast majority get very good responses on one or other of the TKIs. I was told that 12-18 months was the timing they look at to see MMR or CMR. One step at a time though. For now, hopefully after 3 weeks you should have seen a good change in your blood counts, maybe even back to normal. Thats what you want in the first 2-3months. That, and no dramatic effect on your good cells or at least if you do have a dip - and I did "overshoot" a bit in the first 6 weeks or so - that it recovers. That's why they monitor your overall response and reaction to the drugs closely in the first few months.
Good luck.
Richard
I was and am on imatinib, 400mg. It seems to work very well for me. Is my CML still there? Who knows.I assume so but it's possible I might try a future "stop" or dose reduction trial but that's a little way off and for now, if it ain't broke don't fix it. I think with more time and knowledge there will be more and more CMLers who get to where I am fortunate enough to be.
I was and am on imatinib, 400mg. It seems to work very well for me. Is my CML still there? Who knows.I assume so but it's possible I might try a future "stop" or dose reduction trial but that's a little way off and for now, if it ain't broke don't fix it. I think with more time and knowledge there will be more and more CMLers who get to where I am fortunate enough to be.