Josh: Well, you're being, you're being super helpful with this information, so we really appreciate you opening. and letting the listener know what to expect. So thank you.

Melanie: Absolutely. Yes. So when you get to Portugal, there's a certain financial, um, element to obtaining your V seven and getting here. So there's some finances included in that.

When you get here, there's also setup fees. There's utilities, getting a cell phone account. There's, you know, um, there's setup that has to be established that also has a financial leg to it. Getting groceries, making sure you have, you know, a well stocked. Along with that, as you set up these insurances and you have to pay things for cash, sometimes the pharmacies literally you could get anything that you need by, by prescription for like five year old to eight year old here, whether it's an inhaler, blood pressure medication, anything like that, which is not always the case in the states.

It just really depends on the type of insurance that you have in the states. Um, right. But here, you don't really need insurance for that. Here at the pharmacy. You just need a prescription from a. , and that could be a local clinic, that could be any, any type of doctor here. And they do have hospitals, private, public and clinics.

And they have nursing facilities as well where you can go in and get your flu shot from a nurse and they can also prescribe things as well, which is really nice. There's a lot of, lot of one-stop shops everywhere you go in the state for chemo only. This is not a custom created chemo cocktail either.

Just standard one size fits all in the states. It could be any war from, my mom was telling me 60 to $75,000 just for chemo. Has nothing to do with investigative diagnosis, has nothing to do with radiation. Whoa, just chemo here. They quoted me around 12,000 euro for all of my chemo, and then it went.

10,000 euro. They said we were incorrect. It's actually 10,000 euro for you to have. I'll have all of your chemo done. All of the investigative lab works, MRIs and CT scans and biopsies and all of that cost me around 5,500 euro. So right now we're looking at a upwards of about 16,000 euro from beginning all the way to the end of my chemo and my chemo.

It ends at the end of. , all of that is what that's gonna cost me out of pocket. Now, in order for you to obtain a D seven here, you have to have a private healthcare policy for travel. You have to. They, because all of this fell within that, they're actually gonna reimburse me. For everything up until the end of my policy.

So everything that I've paid thus far, which I think is uh, maybe about 8,000 Euro right now, is gonna get reimbursed with that. So insurance, insurance, insurance needs to be your middle name. If you're gonna make this move, make sure you're properly insured and covered. You don't know what could happen at any time.

Don't be scared. Be

Josh: prepared. That's a great motto there. Put that as a, a quote for this podcast. Absolutely. Okay, so what insurance did you use? Who, who did you go through? Axa. Okay. AXA is one of the, the big boys.

Melanie: It is. Okay. And I got the best of the best. I did not go chini on that insurance. I think I paid $271 for each.

My husband and I each, um, because I wanted to make sure we were gonna be completely covered for. Was it a year

Josh: policy that you

Melanie: did? I think it was, or six months, I think it was a six month policy. And normally, because we did all this in July, I don't think we, we needed a year. I think right now the D seven is, is requiring a year.

Um, which is fine, Javier, because you have that insurance has a backup just in case the other. Private healthcare insurance has too much of a waiting period or whenever you're covered, so that's really, really good.

Josh: Nice. So, so really you, you had to pay quite a bit out of pocket, but then in the end most everything will be reimbursed.

Did I catch that right?

Melanie: Because the policy has since expired. It's ended. So they're gonna pay for everything up until that policy period. Okay. We still, I think, have to pay a few thousand dollars out of pocket, but more than half of that's gonna get reimbursed from the travel. Mm-hmm. , uh, insurance and then a little bit will be out of pocket.

But when you think about it, whether it's five to 8,000 euro for this treatment, for chemo, it is not 60 to 75,000. Right, right, right. Totally. Totally. So it's a tiny, tiny, tiny amount, even if it. , the whole 15,000. Sure. It's still a tiny percentage, so it's very affordable. Yep. They will help you with the money issue after, uh, but that's all we're gonna have to pay, because after that, all the rest of my treatment's gonna be done through the public sector.

Josh: Yeah. I want to ask about that too. So if this had happened after you had your. Seth appointment, your residency confirmation, then all of it would have been taken care of.

Melanie: Right? It would have a hundred percent been taken care of either by my private healthcare policy mm-hmm. , because the waiting period would've been over and they would have covered it because, , it was during the waiting period.

They're not gonna cover any of that. But again, that's not insurance's fault, it's a timing thing. Yep. Um, but yes, so I could have either gone through the private hospitals or public and it would've all been taken care of either by insurance that we prepaid for. Cause you have to prepaid for it in advance every January, I believe, for the full year.

Um, or public. But it really depends on if I wanted to deal with a waiting period or not.

Josh: Fascinating. Okay. But I'm curious to know. . Is there anyone in particular or any group that helped you kind of navigate this whole thing, whether it be, you know, which system to go through, or any language issues like language barriers that they might have been?

Melanie: No. I did that on my own. . Um, when my friend told me that she goes through Coof Institute, um, and she told me the name of a doctor, now I got it from my friend, a name of a doctor from my friend. But you can also go through Serenity who will actually assign you a general practitioner as well. That's so that's why That's right.

I mentioned Fpop and Serenity cuz those are the concierge services that really, really are there for expats to help. , all this bureaucracy. Yeah. And any type of leg of it. So definitely look them up on, on their websites and see what they're about. I called Coof Institute myself. They have an English, you know, for English Press five.

Yeah. And so someone came on and I said, hello, I need to meet with this doctor. This is the reason why I need to meet with them. What do I have to do? And they said, Wow. Not a problem. You need to get seen immediately. This is the earliest we can get you seen, but it is expedited. Is that okay with you? They literally asked if it was okay with me and normally I, you know, we just kind of relinquish control on things like that.

Like, oh, is it okay with you take, you can get, exactly, yeah. And they're like, we can see if I was just like, no, that's fine. Let's just go ahead and do it. And that was it. They said, okay, we're going to email. all of the information for your appointment, which they did pretty much in less than five minutes.

Um, I had all of the information, I had what floor to go on, you know, the address to the hospital, the name of the doctor, the time and when you get there, then there's always someone there to, um, help you with like a number. Cause everything here is like a DMV number, so you have to. You know, putting in a number

Josh: and waiting.

Melanie: Yeah, exactly. Um, and then they call your number and, and that stop. But there was a lot of guidance. I mean, I'm sure Kevin and I kind of were, um, left to our own devices a couple of times, but all of the front desk. receptionist, they all spoke like conversational English, which was very helpful. Right. They knew how to answer my questions and they, they got the gist of what I was trying to ask.

And Google Translate definitely helped just in case. But yeah, I would say the navigation aspect of it was really cut and dry. It was a matter of just giving them a call, pressing five for English, and that, I think that's pretty much every major hospital is gonna have that right option. Um, it was not difficult.

It was not difficult to. . Even when, when I, between my general practitioner and then my oncologist and my medical staff, that I have a team now, which is crazy to think about. I have a medical team here. They all kind of did everything on my behalf. They set up all of the appointments for me. They made sure that everything was in order.

They all had meetings on my behalf, just. Guess my case. And then they ev emailed me about the results of those meetings. And this is what we're gonna do for you. You have a, they gave me some options and a choice and I said, no, no, I don't want options and choices. I want you to tell me what I need to do.

They said, not a problem, but they actually involved me in my care. And I was shocked by that, that I was so involved that sometimes I had to be like, no, this is something that I kind of need the professionals to take on. And they were perfectly okay with that. They just needed to make sure that. Was that I felt like I still had control over my life.

And the kindness, the humanity element of the navigation and the care of everything from beginning to end just kind of blew my mind a little bit. Very impressed. It's all heart. It's um, yeah.

Josh: Very impressed. That is amazing. Okay, so let's step back a little bit from the medical team and let's talk about your, your team, which is your c.

So I'm assuming that you guys have started to build a community here in the city. What's that been like?

Melanie: Well, I can thank you and Kaylee for that. , actually, , you have created these. I think

Josh: we've, we've, we've done that much. I mean, you guys have jumped right into the community here. You have

Melanie: though. You, um, so other than Facebook groups where they, they create meetups and, you know, you can make friends like, Hey, I'll be here in port, let's meet up.

So there's a lot of individuals that want to meet other people who have done the exact same thing that they, there's a lot of co common ground there. Like the biggest thing we have in common is the fact that we have all made this transition. A lot of us are doing it sight uns. actually. Uh, or I've only done it for Portugal once.

I can't believe I'm a resident here now. Like this is crazy. Am I having these experiences that you're having? It's really lovely to meet other people that are in the exact same position that you are of all different age groups, all different backgrounds. You feel like a global citizen. It's a wonderful, wonderful, wonderful thing with expats everywhere.

You have also created this meetups where you all meet up like in a beautiful hotel or some location restaurant, and everyone gets to come as a group and you meet, you make. They start off as strangers and they become your next lunch buddies. Yeah. And so you and Kaylee have met up with a lot of us. Then of course we start things like Ladies Who Lunch and Dudes Who Dine and all these other off offshoot groups of the same commonalities, whether it's all, we all do the same kind of work in the same industry, or we're all around the same type of age range, or we have all these things in common.

Some of them, yeah. Are runners or you know, so we love that because then we can kind. You know, meet up in these big groups, get to know, and then we go off into smaller, more intimate villages of friends. Yeah. Um, and so that's kind of how, but it, it doesn't matter if you're an introvert, if you're an extrovert, it doesn't really matter because you're gonna meet like personalities to meet up with.

And it is very easy if you allow yourself just to show up and go to these, go to these speedups, it is very easy to actually, to make friends.

Josh: Yeah, that's such a good way to put it. Like just showing up is, and who, like, even for people who are introverted, just showing up is, I don't know, a good 80, 90% of the battle it is.

Right? Absolutely. You just show up, make yourself available. That extrovert is gonna come up and talk to you, so you don't even have to go up to them. So that's, that's such a, a good piece of advice. It's just showing up. Yes. Tell me a bit about your, your life philosophy.

Melanie: Oh my gosh, , that is my favorite question of all time.

I'm gonna try to be as short and sweet and profound as I possibly can with it. Let's do it. My life philosophy in the 46 years that I've been alive is in all that I've seen, all that I've experienced, whether it is loss, financial hard. Heartbreak, disappointment, um, ending of relationships, you know, divorces, all of this at the end of the day, whether it's your career, your friendships, your family relationships, your romantic relationships, everything that makes you who you are, all of the we're a one onion, right?

And we have a bunch of layers to our onion. Mm-hmm. , which everyone needs to be activated. Whichever layer has to be activated at that time, lead that layer with integrity. Kindness and compassion and humanity, career, anything. Integrity, kindness, compassion, and humanity. And it will never, ever, ever steer you wrong.

Listen to your gut. It is your own crystal ball. It'll never steer you wrong. If you arrive proper as your best self with the best mindset of that, just integrity, kindness, compassion, and humanity. It will never steer you wrong. There is, um, a song actually that is part of my life philosophy. Um, and although my husband and I practice and follow a Buddhist philosophy spiritually, um, I was raised in, um, in the Christian faith, and there is a gospel singer who is my favorite singer of all time.

Her name is Sandy Patty, are you. No, no, no. She's old. Great name. No old like Sandy Patty. I know two names, right? I love it. Yeah. Um, and she's was huge in the eighties. Huge. In the eighties. And she ha wrote a song called Love in Any Language. Okay. And it wasn't a religious song, but it's about being an a global citizen.

And so basically the words are really simple. Um,

They all mean I love you. The sounds are all as different as the lands from which they came. And though our words are all unique, our hearts are still the same. Love in any language. Straight from the heart pulls us all together, never apart. And once we learn to speak it, all the world will hear love in any language fluently spoken.

Here we teach the young our differences, yet look how we're the. We love to laugh, to dream our dreams. We know the sting of pain from Lennon grad to Lexington. The farmer loves his land and daddies all get misty-eyed to give their daughter's hand. Maybe when we realize how much there is to share, we'll find too much in common to pretend it isn't there.

Though the rhetoric of government may keep us world apart, there's no misinterpreting the language of the heart. And so that is my favorite song of all time because I think it reaches. The world. All ethnicities, all cultures, all races, all gender. , it doesn't matter. So integrity, kindness, and compassion.

Love is in there, of course. And humanity. And that is my philosophy for life. And, and

Josh: three grown men listening into this podcast, um, Live right now are misty-eyed. Oh, . I appreciate that. Of course. I

Melanie: appreciate that. Thank you for that question. I love that. I love that question. Well, I have

Josh: another fun question for you, since you are a, a lady who lunch.

I wanna know if you could have dinner with any author, who would it be? .

Melanie: Oh my gosh. My favorite author of all time would be Elizabeth Gilbert. She's the one who wrote, eat, pray, love. Okay. And that came out during a time when I was struggling in a relationship that I needed to exit from. She was a world traveler and she sought pleasure in Italy.

She went to India for spirituality, and then she ended in Bali for peace and oneness. And throughout all of that, it was such an inspiration, but it was more about her emotional journey through all of this. And there were so many elements of it that could relate to like anyone going through a health journey or a health crisis.

But it was, it was very profound. And she put words, Two feelings that I didn't know there were words for. She has a vocabulary for certain things that I don't have a vocabulary for. And to me I was, I really gravitated to that. So now at 46, I would love to have dinner with her and just kind of pick her brain about what her take on certain situations in life are.

Because she also has dealt with, you know, she lost the love of her life to cancer, right? And so I think someone who just has a global. And has seen the world and, um, has a vocabulary that I want in my life. I think she's someone that I would love to have dinner with, and I think that dinner would probably span a good three to four hours.

I'm sure I'll buy her dessert. We'll, we'll deal with it. start with cocktail. Start with cocktail.

Josh: That's it. Yes, that's it. Okay, so I I didn't realize that that that book, it's a true story. It is.

Melanie: It is based on her own life. It's her story. It's her.

Josh: Crazy. I thought it was about Julia Roberts.

Melanie: Oh, . Understand.

Wouldn't it be wonderful if Julia Roberts could have play all in her own life starting? Although for me, I, that's, think I resemble more like Danielle Fi who played Topanga in Boy Meets World. I think that's probably the, okay.

Josh: Yeah. Yeah. I had a crush on her when I was a kid. Oh, okay. Not bad. I'll

Melanie: take, didn't meet.

Josh: That's. . Let's end with this question at exp. Pets everywhere. We believe that living abroad transforms lives. God, how has living abroad transformed your

life?

Melanie: Oh my gosh. That is also my favorite question. Thank you, Josh for that. Wow. How can it not when you have personal experiences outside of everything that you.

Everything you know of yourself as a person, everything you know as yourself with a couple, within a couple, your mind expands, your heart, expands your, uh, global awareness because now we are part of, um, a continent and a country where we have mute. Other news. So now we have more world news available to us.

We know what's happening with the government in the country that we now live in. Um, and so we're kind of, we're of the United States, those who come from the United States, but we're not in it. And so we're able to kind of have a more broader. View of things and it changes who we are as human beings. It makes it, our empathy just broadens, um, in a way that it never has before in all good ways.

Even the painful lessons like me going through cancer here, I'm still filled with so much gratitude because I honestly feel like I'm in the right place at the right time. And the universe put me at the right place at the right time. And am I utilizing resources that I didn't think I'd have to use yet?

Yes, I am. Do I have a little bit of American guilt from that? Yes, I do because I've just been programmed in a way to think in a certain way versus here where they treat you a certain way to where you kind of have to reprogram your thoughts. But it's like that with every element of traveling and living in a completely different country.

You do this to. We're doing this to grow, to evolve, to progress. As human beings, we want our hearts to be bigger. We want our minds to expand. We want more out of life, and that is why we're making this move, because we don't wanna be pigeonholed into, you know, um, certain ways of living. We want to live a very, very full life, and that comes with obstacles.

Each day is not perfect. Um, each situation isn't perfect and, but it is an element of growth that I think is so important. For the human experience and the human condition, it polishes the human condition through those human experiences. And how do you do that without a passport? So rule number one, go get a passport, , and change your life.

And meets it with really excellent people. I mean, the most stellar, interesting, interesting, intelligent people from all walks of life. My mind has been blown from just some of the individuals I've met, and so what a gift. It's a priceless gift.

Josh: That's brilliant. And if people want to get in touch with you, how may they reach you?

Melanie: Yes. I just started a brand new YouTube channel. They're only, they're so like, 12 videos on there right now. It's called Expedition Confidential. It's on YouTube mainly. It's just, um, you know, it's travel baseball all over. It's not necessarily Portugal centric right now, but I do have Lego, it called cancer in Portugal, where you can follow my whole journey from beginning to end and I'll be discussing a.

Everything on video form that we have discussed here on this, um, podcast. And so if you, you can reach me on there. I also have a Facebook page, um, expedition Confidential, and I'm also on Instagram Expedition underscore confidential, so you can find me and message me on those. If you have any other questions on Facebook, I'm under Melanie Villareal grant.

Um, so you can find me there as well if you have any questions. So those are the ways that you can locate me.

Josh: Melanie, thank you so much for meeting with ex-Pats everywhere. We really appreciate your time

Melanie: today. Thank you. This has been so fun. Josh, thank you for everything.

Josh: It was a lot of fun for me and Kaylee, and I really wish that you get better soon and any way that we can support and help you, let us know and, uh, can't wait to, uh, have some lunch with you,

Yeah, great. Watch you later.

Melanie: Bye.