Merrimack couple have been frustrated by insurance programs while battling 3 cancers

MERRIMACK – Chuck and Jackie Rossier call themselves survivors.

In the last 10 years, the couple have battled through three bouts of cancer. But they said one of the biggest struggles was navigating the complex and exceedingly frustrating health care system.

“It’s very difficult to get through,” said Chuck Rossier, 66. “We’re both college graduates. We have enormous struggles working the system.”

“It’s extremely frustrating when people least need to be frustrated,” added Jackie Rossier, 63.

For that reason and others, the couple are keeping a close eye on the current health care debate because, as Jackie Rossier said, “We don’t want anyone to go through what we did.”

“We’re interested in making sure that people who need help aren’t turned away by hospitals,” her husband said, “so people aren’t turned away by insurance companies.”

While their medical care over the years has been “excellent,” Chuck Rossier said, dealing with “financial people” – such as insurance companies and hospital finance officers – has been a nightmare.

“They’re only permitted to say no,” he said. “It’s easier to go into a lion’s cage and fight lions.”

‘I was going to die’

In June 1997, Chuck Rossier – an avid runner – was hiking Mount Chocorua with his then-19-year-old son and members of the Gate City Striders club.

Rossier decided he wanted to race his son down the mountain. In his mid-50s at the time, Rossier felt it was “probably the last time in my life I could beat him.”

When he reached the bottom – first, by the way – Rossier tripped over a root and snapped his ankle.

A month later, after his cast was removed, he started feeling “tremendous” pain in his foot, then in his calf, which then traveled to his back, he said.

Rossier went to a hospital just in time for doctors to discover the pressure was being caused by blood clots, which caused a pulmonary embolism – a serious lung blockage.

While he was treated, Rossier was in and out of consciousness for two days.

Rossier, who worked many years with computers, had been out of work for years after the company for which he worked went bust. He’d gone back to school and was working part-time, but didn’t have insurance. He was covered by Medicaid and the Striders’ insurance policy.

That scare led to a follow-up two months later with his primary care doctor, who noticed Rossier hadn’t been examined thoroughly in his earlier hospital stint and ordered a prostate screening.

When the results came in, Rossier learned his protein score was “way above normal,” he said. His primary care doctor sent him to a urologist, urging that specialist to treat Rossier on charity. By that time, Medicaid benefits had run their course.

In January 1998, Rossier had a biopsy. On the scale of cancer aggression, he scored a 7 out of 9.

Further tests revealed the cancer had spread beyond the prostate (positive in lymph nodes). Rossier was told he had three to six months to live.

“When I was a patient, I had to fill out forms and tell people I was going to die,” Rossier said. “It was horrible. I was terrified of the end phase, spreading to bones, the increased pain. I thought it would have been nice if the urologist let me die on the operating table. …

“But I had times when I was going to fight it, so there were positive moments.”

“It took a long time for him to think like a survivor,” Jackie Rossier said.

A combination of pills and injections could buy him a year or so, but it would cost $40,000 he didn’t have.

“I was aware of the statistics on my cancer prognosis,” Chuck Rossier said. “It was perfectly clear. Within a year, 50 percent of people with my diagnosis died. In the second year, 50 percent of those died. …

“I eventually concluded it was out of my control, and God was going to make a decision.”

With Chuck Rossier out of work and Jackie Rossier substitute teaching occasionally, the couple had very little income to speak of.

Finally, Rossier – an Air Force veteran – turned to the Veterans Hospital for free care. He was able to get medication there that extended his life.

Then, he began scouring for options. At last, he was hooked up with a clinical trial in Massachusetts that offered a specialized combination of hormone blockades and radiation, designed to eliminate prostate cancer cells.

In the summer of 1998, he went each day for treatment, which was covered by the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs.

As Rossier waited to see whether the radiation treatment would keep him alive, he despaired about finances. He was making $700 a month in disability, not enough to make rent and buy bread.

He remembers running on Manchester Street, despairing about finances and whether the radiation would work. A Cadillac was approaching quickly, and it crossed his mind to step in its way.

One foot planted in the path of the car, but the other didn’t, Rossier said.

“God only knows” why, he said.

It’s a good thing. Chuck Rossier has lived 11 years longer than anyone thought he would.

‘Off the deep end’

In December 2001, Jackie Rossier noticed that her eyes had started tearing.

The problem didn’t go away. She had a fever, pain in her eye and redness, so she met with a doctor, who noticed her left eyeball was “bulging.”

Tests showed a tumor behind her eye. A surgeon in Massachusetts told her the tumor needed to come out, even if it wasn’t cancerous.

In March 2002, Jackie Rossier had the surgery. A few weeks later, doctors reported that the cells weren’t all gone, and that it had been a cancerous tumor. She would need radiation if she wanted better than a 50/50 chance of survival.

At the time, Massachusetts General Hospital was the only facility in the world that offered what she needed, but treatments cost tens of thousands of dollars, Chuck Rossier said. While an oncologist there offered the couple free treatment, the hospital refused to accept New Hampshire Medicaid, they said. The couple appealed without success.

Jackie Rossier said she was so stressed that she was hospitalized after attempting suicide.

“I went off the deep end,” she said, adding that she was also coping with a death in the family and other major stressors. “I was so sad and overwhelmed that I just wanted to go to sleep.”

Meanwhile, Chuck Rossier handled the paperwork, falling into a depression himself. For two months, they battled for care.

“I could do Jackie’s paperwork for her because she was denied treatment here, there and everywhere,” Chuck Rossier said. “I was fighting for treatment.”

“I was clueless” about how difficult the health care system was, Jackie Rossier said. “People should not have to beg for the health care they need.”

Finally, someone other than the Rossiers – and whose identity has never been revealed to them – convinced the hospital to accept Medicaid, and Jackie Rossier started the first of her 37 radiation treatments.

Jackie Rossier said she couldn’t shake this question: “ ‘What if I have this radiation and it doesn’t work?’ I saw him go through it once and I was very scared and angry. He had it once. Haven’t we been through enough?”

The radiation treatments worked, and Jackie Rossier has been cancer-free ever since.

But getting the medications she needs to keep her eye lubricated has been another story.

Because her eye doesn’t produce tears, she needs specific eye drops. They cost $180 month, but aren’t covered under Medicare Part D or Medicaid.

The Rossiers fought with their insurance company and rallied a doctor and even then-Congressman Jeb Bradley through Medicare for their cause, but to no avail.

‘Something to celebrate’

These days, the Rossiers finally are fairly stable – both in their health and their finances.

Five years ago, Chuck Rossier suffered another bout with cancer – this time of the esophagus – but doctors caught it early.

The couple receive Social Security payments, and the government pays for most of their rent. Medicare covers most of Jackie Rossier’s prescriptions – except for the eye drops – and the VA still pays for Chuck Rossier’s care.

“We consider ourselves very lucky,” Jackie Rossier said. “We don’t know if it was luck or plain old determination.”

Chuck Rossier now volunteers as a driver for the American Cancer Society, shuttling patients to appointments. He’s also helping wade through paperwork with a neighbor who has been diagnosed with cancer.

The couple also stay plugged in through online cancer forums to connect with other patients.

“Those of us who’ve been through it try to get through the appeals process, and sometimes they get through, sometimes they don’t,” Chuck Rossier said. “Frequently, when they don’t get coverage, their spouse sends in a message announcing the death of the patient.”

Despite the tremendous difficulties steering through the system, the couple say their experience with cancer has given them a better outlook on life.

“I’m here, and that’s something to celebrate,” Jackie Rossier said.

“Every morning, I get up check the weather,” her husband added. “If it’s raining, snowing, sunny, hot, I say, ‘What a beautiful day.’ Why? Because the sun rose, even if I can’t see it.”

Karen Lovett can be reached at 594-6402 or klovett@nashuatelegraph.com.