Chip's amazing oncologist, Dr. Valerie Lee

I’ve been emailing with Chip’s oncologist Dr. Lee the last couple weeks to obtain medical documentation needed to submit claim for a Critical Illness Benefit Chip had at his job. Cancer is listed on AllState’s “critical illness” list, so I thought Chip’s illness would easily and simply qualify for the benefit. The first AllState representative whom I spoke to about filing a claim certainly made it seem like this was the case. She basically was like “Oh, just fill out these forms, mail them in and the check to his estate will be in the mail for $_______.” I should have remembered Chip’s words that the business model for insurance companies is “to gamble on you never needing to make/filing an insurance claim” while as consumers we “gamble that we will need to make a claim and will be rewarded after making a solid claim.” But, I didn’t remember his words and continued naively along the process.

As Chip would have predicted, if he were here to predict, AllState doesn’t really want to pay out the benefit. The company is making me jump through hoops. To successfully jump through the hoops, I emailed back-and-forth with his oncologist, Dr. Valerie Lee, in order to request a physician’s letter stating which cancer he had, the date of diagnosis and the date of his death. She wrote it, and I emailed it to AllState. In return, I received a form letter saying essentially “We’re here to help” but you need to jump through more hoops. So, I emailed Dr. Lee again, and she responded with how sorry she was that I had to keep dealing with more paperwork and gave me the name of someone at Sibley Hospital who could help me with AllState’s requests for documentation.

I hate bothering Dr. Lee these days, since she is out on maternity leave until August 31st. Chip and I last spoke to her on Wednesday, May 27th for a scheduled phone appointment to discuss whether he wanted to shift to hospice care or remain on her medical caseload, in case he needed a blood transfusion or other medical intervention (other than chemo, since Dr. Lee had made it clear on our May 22nd phone call that chemo wasn’t working anymore). The May 27th appointment was 2 days before she was to go out on maternity leave to await the arrival of her second child, Tessa, who ended up being born on June 5th (We met Dr. Lee after she returned from maternity leave after having her daughter Gwen on February 8, 2017, just 2 months after Chip’s initial diagnosis). Dr. Lee told us on the May 27th call that Chip was in good hands with the doctor who was taking over her caseload, and she said she’d see us in September. She scheduled a follow-up appointment for him in early June with her nurse practitioner, Caitlin, just as a check-in to see how he was feeling and to check on any needed prescription refills.

Despite being on leave and Chip no longer being on her caseload, Dr. Lee has continued to be a source of support. After Chip died, Dr. Lee called soon after to express her condolences. In one of our emailings in June about AllState’s constantly changing needs for documentation, I thanked her for her kind words regarding the impact Chip and I had on her team.  I told her how incredible they had all been throughout Chip's life with cancer and that we couldn't have asked for a better oncologist to support Chip along his cancer journey than her, with an amazing team behind her (I also told her that Chip and I had felt the same for the clinical trial team in Baltimore). I told Dr. Lee that I started a blog just after Chip's passing as a place to put my grief as well as to honor and remember him, and she responded

“I think that writing is a beautiful way of expressing and processing your grief. It also has given such a lovely insight into the Chip that we hadn't gotten to know when we were lost in all the medical care.”

I shared with her that I thought it was meaningful that Chip’s journey with cancer was "bookended" by the arrival of her children. I shared that, to me, this is a beautiful thought and that I believed Chip would agree with me if I could talk to him about it.  I explained that I'd like to blog about the fact that 2 lives came into the world surrounding his diagnosis and death and asked if she’d mind me sharing these details in a future blog post about his medical team. She replied that she would “be honored to be mentioned” in my blog.

I think it’s very meaningful that God put Chip in Dr. Lee’s hands. She is an excellent oncologist who truly allowed Chip to navigate his cancer journey by deciding which course to take (something that was very important to him as he believed people need to be in charge of their healthcare decisions rather than the government making decisions for them). At the onset of his disease, she offered to share statistics about how long he might have to live with his diagnosis, but after he said he wasn’t interested in those statistics, she never brought the topic up again, while gently encouraging him to get his life in order (not in those words…I can’t recall how gently she said it, but it would have been much gentler than that). Dr. Lee never pushed Chip to do chemo or not do chemo (until she had strong evidence that chemo was no longer working) or take any specific course of action. She merely presented options with sound medical knowledge, research and expertise behind the options, and then paused to wait for his reaction or input (I always tried to follow her lead as a provider of information/possibilities and as “an ear” since I also knew how important it was to him to know he held the power to manage his healthcare decisions). Dr. Lee fully understood that Chip was a “fighting” type and she demonstrated her respect for him as that type of patient during every appointment. She shared information that he needed to make his decisions in a way that never squashed his tremendous will to live. Chip and I agreed many times throughout his journey with cancer that Dr. Lee is the perfect representation of a physician who “practices both the art and science of medicine.”

Pondering how Chip’s cancer journey was bookended by Dr. Lee delivering two lives into this world brings me some peace. It reminds me that life is always there to embrace, even after a huge loss, and that life is for the living.

**Here is a YouTube video from March 2020 in which Dr. Lee speaks about the importance of getting screened for colorectal cancer. I'm happy to spread her message about the importance of screening for this disease after the age of 45, even if it is not the cancer that she treated Chip for (his paternal grandmother did, however, die from colon cancer).

**Dr. Lee is also listed on the website page titled "Next Generation of Pancreatic Cancer Experts" where she shares her enthusiasm for investigating a new treat­ment approach that may make currently incurable pancreatic cancers curable.