Should it be laser or the knife?

I had an eye exam this past March.  To my surprise I was told I had cataracts and given a referral card to a place in town that does that surgery.  It was for an evaluation, supposedly.  The first thing I did was call my Medicare provider to see if this surgery was even covered.  It is, but of course they only pay a portion – no surprise there.

At the time of my original eye appointment I had a lot going on with my eyes.  Besides not being able to see out of my trifocal glasses anymore, I have extreme dry eye, macular degeneration, and as if that wasn’t enough, a sty on my right eye!  Good grief!  I was flabbergasted. 

The good news is the MD hasn’t gotten worse since my last visit, thank goodness.  I guess taking all my eye vitamins and cooking all my greens stinking up the house (my husband’s words) has paid off.

I didn’t want to go to the cataract doctor until the sty was gone, which took six weeks!  It has to run its course, the doctor said.  And then if it didn’t move to my left eye.  I was fed up at that point so I went to the herb store and got a homeopathic drop for sties.  I was very impressed with it. The second sty was gone in two weeks.

 Richens Eye Center - my place of choice

 

Now I didn’t want to go the doctor he referred to me too either, so finally free of sty’s, I made an appointment with another doctor in town.  She has the best reputation for eye surgery and my eyes aren’t something I want messed with unless the person is a specialist.

My appointment was June first.  They gave me an entire eye exam all over again.  The doctor told me I had cataracts in both eyes.  Oh my!  Maybe that’s why I feel half-blind, along with the constant watering.  So what do they do, refer me to more eye drops!  I think I’ve tried every drop made at this point, even prescription ones.  Heck, what’s two more weeks of suffering with this dry eye business.  It’s already been four years.  I can do two more weeks surely, I told myself.  So I was a good girl and went and got more eye drops after I left the office.  He had dilated my eyes, but I had those heavy wrap-around shades to wear under my glasses.  I would be fine, right?

 The wrap around shades some of you might be familiar with

 

Well, yes, I could drive, I guess, but the sun glares on the cars were like huge sunbursts exploding all around me.  It was 103 in the shade.  After I followed my husband to an appointment at the bank, I went on to Walgreen’s and got my drops. 

You guessed it, my next appointment is in two weeks (and another co-pay) to go in and have my eyes measured for the lenses, and to discuss pricing with the counselor.  Lord this must be expensive if you need a counselor for that.  The doctor already scared me to death with all the bad things that can happen, but usually doesn’t.  Hmmm…Now the counselors will scare me with the prices, I guess.  The receptionist already told me they have financing.  Hint, hint.

Then it will be yet another appointment for the actual surgery, for one eye and the other about three weeks later.

So I’ve picked the brains of some people at work who had the surgery done.  The laser cost about $2100 more than the knife.  So what it boils down to is how long I want to pay for this cataract surgery.  The guy at work told me he had the knife and was doing fine.  He was only out of pocket about $1800.  What?  That’s a lot of money.  So depending on the lenses I select, I’m looking at $4,000 if I go with laser.  Good heavens!  I hope they have smelling salts to bring me around when they knock me over with the prices.  My sister says I definitely want the laser because you heal quicker and can see better faster.  She knows a few people who’ve had this done.  I guess I need to do more research before my next appointment on the fifteenth when I probably have to sign on the dotted line.

Getting older is expensive.

Do any of you have experience with this?

How much is it worth?

Okay guys, I shouldn’t even admit this, but I bought this dress using my change.  A lot of my change. 

I stumbled upon this dress a month ago when I was out looking for black pants for my upcoming job.  I was having no luck at all.  As I was driving down the street contemplating what to do on the pants issue, I spotted my friend’s car across the street from one of the thrift stores in town.  This gal loves to shop at the thrift stores and seems to find the nicest stuff in those places.  Sometimes she turns the items by putting them on consignment at another store in town and actually making a decent profit.

It’s no wonder she knows so many people all over town.  I don’t have the time to do this sort of thing, but I stopped to run in and surprise her.  I think I was the last person she was expecting to see because she looked shocked when I came in the door.

She suggested I look in the thrift store for pants and had even called me a few days earlier wanting me to meet her at a different thrift store because she found some black pants for me.  That didn’t work out, but I looked around anyway and didn’t find anything.  She suggested I go down the street to a newer consignment place that opened up a few months ago.

I didn’t find any black pants there in my size either, but I did spot this dress hanging up on the back wall.  I couldn’t pass up trying it on.  Of course, it fit perfect because I had little cash on me.  I ended up giving the older woman behind the counter a few dollar bills and counted out about $10 in change.  She grinned the whole time.  I doubt she ever had a sale like that one.

The dress was displayed with a necklace that matched it perfectly. I couldn’t afford that and was hoping it would still be there in a month after I had more cash. 

I guess it was meant to be because I went in there last Wednesday and the necklace was waiting for me.  I called her beforehand to make sure it was still there.  Yes, she remembered me from all that change I gave her last month.  She was happy to see me and we had a quite a chat about several different subjects.

I’ve done a few crazy things in my life lately, so I’m unforgettable in a couple of places in town.  So far, that’s been a good thing.

I run my own sweatshop

That’s right folks.  It’s my bonus room upstairs that doubles as a sewing and craft room.  I’ve been doing alterations up there in my spare time.  What spare time?  The thing of it is I try to keep the A/C off and use fans only.  I figure it will save on the electric bill and if we could manage as kids in the south with no A/C, I figured I could do it now.  Well, this is tougher than you think.  Usually by the end of the day, I can wring out my clothes.  I have a soaked towel I’ve been mopping my face and neck with and I can’t wait to hit the shower to cool off and take some aspirin for my splitting headache.

Still this is doable, although it takes me longer because I’m delirious from the heat.  Plus, it gives me extra spending money, eventually, once I get the items finished.

Here are some skirts I altered recently.  The polka dot strip is for insertion into a swimsuit top that’s a bit too low for my busty friend.

Occasionally, I sew something from scratch too, but it’s hard to stay up there all day without some kind of break.  The room is definitely more pleasant in the wintertime, but I can get so much more accomplished when hubby is out of town because I don’t have to keep his schedule for eating, sleeping and just hanging out, etc.  It’s hard to disappear upstairs for hours with a man in the house.

Ten Things that make me Happy

Free Clipart



My Cats

Warm Weather

Sunshine

Peace and Quiet

My Own space

Having enough Time and Money for everything

Writing

Reading

Playing in my Craft and Sewing room

Chocolate

All these things and not necessarily in this order

I’m Afraid of What

Photo Credit - Gandolfo Cannatella



That’s the topic for today’s post. All the prompts in this May Challenge are things that you should be able to answer without racking your brain too much. They can also be short, if you like. If you want to participate, you will find the info you need here:

Story of My Life: Blog every day in May: a challenge

Now, to get on with today’s post. I am probably most afraid of losing everything and having to live as a homeless person. Normally, this kind of stuff wouldn’t cross my mind a lot, but my husband is quite a naysayer about what is going on in the US these days. Listening to him all the time makes me wonder about many things.

I’m not sure how worried I really need to be, or if this is just an argument for getting me to agree to moving out of the country. He doesn’t understand that I can see no sense in that. It will be very hard to see my family then, not that I see them much now, but it is still doable when I can drive there, if I have to.

I know our funds are always in short supply and the cost of everything keeps going up. To make ends meet in the US on retirement income is very difficult. We really will have to work all our lives. Of course, the argument is we will live well in a foreign country. I’m not so sure this is true after talking with friends who have done that. I think we, as Americans, are just a spoiled bunch because we’ve had so much all of our lives and don’t realize the difficulties and expenses that can arise in foreign areas.

Anyhow, the jury is still out on the verdict as to where to move, but the planning and downsizing efforts continue.

If I were homeless, where would I plug in my computer, and keep all my cats, not to mention everything else I would never part with? This would be a real serious issue. Has anyone else ever thought about this?

How Low Will You Stoop For Money?

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On the front page of Thursday’s newspaper, there was an article about a thief cutting off the tail of a local horse. I didn’t know this, but there seems to be a black-market for such items. Apparently, people use them in western wear, and in artwork.


This happened in a small town about twenty minutes north of me and sometime in the afternoon because the owner looked in on the horse earlier in the day. She discovered the tail missing when she went to feed it before dark.

The thief had the gall to do this in the middle of the day. Now the poor horse has issues because it’s embarrassed that its tail is missing. It only has a stub there now, so the vet told the woman to rig up a tail to tie on back there until his grows back. This can be a traumatic experience for horses because take great pride in their tails.

I know times are hard around here, but you would think that people could come up with some other way to make money and not pick on the poor defenseless animals.

Many horse owners don’t take the best care of their animals anyway, in my opinion. A lot of them don’t even provide shelter from the scorching sun we have here in the summers. When there are no trees to get under, you would think they would build a lean-to type structure. Every year there are numerous letters to the editor of the paper about the poor animals left to suffer in the sun.

There isn’t a lot that surprises me anymore. I do think this is animal cruelty, and I hate to see that. Let’s hope this isn’t the start of more episodes of tail cutting around here. What is your opinion on this?