The treatment for detached retina is going well. I received the 3rd laser treatment on the left eye. That might be the last treatment for the left eye. The detachment in the right eye will be checked this Thursday to see if the attachment is proceeding or whether the gas treatment is needed. I am happy with my doctor and confident that he is doing the right thing.
When the attachment treatments are done, then I will get a new prescription to correct the vision in both eyes. I think for now, the doctors just look at the eyes to see how healthy it looks, then glasses will fix the final corrections. We'll see in a month or 2 what my ultimate vision will be.
New topic
This past summer I was treated for a case of celluiltus, which is an infection under the skin. Again, I don't know where this came from.. There was a lump on my face along the top of the jawbone from about the ear to the cheekbone. It was treated with augmentin 3 times a day for 5 days and the lump and tenderness went away. Augmentin contains amoxicillin which is same drug we used to treat Eli and Ely's ear infections 25 years ago.
When I noticed the lump and tenderness it was Sunday morning and I went into the University of Washington Hospital Emergency Room for treatment. Five hours later, I emerged from the Emergency Clinic with the prescription for $20 of augmentin which cured the infections.
What took 5 hours and ended in such a simple treatment? Showing up at the ER, they checked my insurance and when it all checked out the race began. I got: ultrasound, Xrays and a CT scan. I was treated by 2 interns, their supervisor, an Eye, Ear, Nose and Throat specialist and numerous nurses and technicians. It would have been a slow Sunday afternoon in the ER if I hadn't shown up, I believe in the five hours there, there were less than 12 other patients. All through the afternoon in bed , there was no worry on my part because if it was a serious case then there would have been a sense of urgency and there was no urgency in my treatment.
The best part of this story is that a month after the visit to the ER the bills from the hospital and physicians came in. $7500.00 in testing and diagnosis for something that was cleared up with $20 of amoxicillin.
Later in the Summer, I went for a perfunctory checkup to have my high blood pressure prescription renewed. I related the story to the young new doctor. He seemed to be quite impressed that such a simple case of cellulitus produced so much income for the hospital. He explained that patients with insurance are overcharged to compensate for those without insurance. He said there is a game of "chicken" going on between doctors and hospitals versus the government and insurance companies. Doctors will pump up their services to see if they are called on it by the government and insurance companies.
I feel conflicted by my doctors who are willing to shade the truth to make money but on the other side they are supposedly totally honest with their patients. How much does money effect their treatment? In pursuing two goals at once, at least one goal is suboptimal.
Historically the American Medical Association (AMA) (.i.e the doctor's union) has fought "socialized medicine" so hard that their credibility in the national healthcare debate is suspect. Despite how doctors are portrayed on TV in movies, nore than ever I have a suspicion that they are in it for the money.
Monitors
With my bads eyes, if I can't control the font size I don't even try to read the text. Most computer programs have some ability to increase the font size so on the computer I'm OK.
On the hardware side the size of the monitor is another barrier. Cellphones are out for me now. Even a laptop screen is too small.
One solution is to hookup the large TV monitor to the computer(42 ubches).
Both the monitor and the computer usually have high resolution but the ports on the computer side and the monitor side are usually some variant of the old VGA standard. So the final resolution is something like 800x600. Certainly good enough for programing and email.
The most worthless key on the keyboard? Answer: the caps lock. It was certainly a holdover from the manual typewriters and it might have a use when the programming languages were FORTRAN, BASIC, COBOL, ... but we all have moved on since those days. I like to remove the cap lock key from my keyboards so I don't accidentally hit it.
I agree that the Caps Lock key is worthless! I'm glad that you are getting good care for your eyes. I'm also happy that you don't have to deal with the US healthcare system for your treatments.
ReplyDeleteLarry and I are doing well. We learned how to play a new game with dominoes, Mexican Train. We hope to play it with you some time. It's still warm and sunny here.