It was health care open season in November of 2007 when my sister Kae Lynne Nielson made a pivotal decision that at the time seemed rather mundane. She never dreamed it would become so important in the coming year. She chose to purchase a supplemental voluntary cancer policy from Aflac. At the time she was 45 years old and married to Robert who is 15 years her senior. Robert came from a large LDS family in Southeastern Utah called Blanding. It was a well known fact that Blanding had been exposed to nuclear bomb testing that took place in nearby Nevada. Robert watched his mother die of breast cancer and 3 sisters also battled different types of cancer throughout their lives. Also, Robert's brother had died of a a heart attack in the previous month. Her brother-in-laws' death was a raw, fresh memory as she listened to the invited Aflac agent who was educating the KP employees about their products. Kae Lynne was a sales representative in Salt Lake City for a national privately held print and promotional items company called KP Corp. Robert's coverage would not qualify for the employee discount, so in oder to take advantage of the discount she too was required to buy a policy. She made the decision and forgot about it until the first payment was made in january of 2008. Six months later on June 9th 2008 Kae Lynne was diagnosed with aggressive mantle cell non-hodgkins lymphoma cancer. They discovered this after removing her tonsils on June 6 after having a lingering sore throat for 3 months. Prior to this Kae Lynne worked out faithfully at the tony Treehouse healthclub where she would participate in boot camp and circuit training daily at 6am. She entered the hospital on July 2nd where chemo and a dramatic stem cell transplant became her world for a year. Kae Lynne was the main provider of income and health benefits for her husband Robert and their 8 year old son Parker. Her income and benefits came to a screeching halt when KP terminated her the day she went into the hospital. More will be said about that in coming posts, but the good news is that to date Aflac's cancer policy has paid her almost sixty-thousand dollars...
