Medical appointments do seem to pass the time for a retired gentleman.
I booked an eye test for this week. As I suspected my sight has deteriorated and I need both new reading glasses and new transitional multifocals. I am happy with my frames so I wanted to use them again. No, your new reading prescription glasses won't fit into you current frames. Bugger. I chose a similar but a little lighter reading glasses frame.
Then, it is unwise to use your old multifocal frames as it will cost you more than our deal of 80% off for your second pair of glasses. I chose the same new frame as my old frame.
So often matters of economics puzzle me.
While the extensive eye test didn't cost me anything, and they no longer puff air at your eyeballs, the glasses did, just into four figures. What can I do? I need to see.
A couple of days later I went to have the stiches in my neck removed. The wound has healed well. A nurse removed the stitches. The doctor came in and took a look. It looks good, she proclaimed. However....
She went on to say that she was surprised that the test results showed it was a melanoma. My last skin cancer doctor used to use very expensive camera equipment. This doctor just uses her phone. She showed me a a tiny grey spot that had changed between photos a year earlier. She is confident that she fully removed it but the Alfred Hospital who tested it isn't quite happy and want to cut wider, like a circle of two centimetres. It is a surface spreader type of melanoma, not a deep one.
Such matters are treated quite urgently by our public hospitals, especially if the pathology is already sorted. I won't wait very long. Nevertheless, I is not happy as I face a bigger chop from my neck. Reassuringly the doctor told me that at my age I have plenty of excess neck flesh so it will be easy surgery. Thanks, I think.
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I hear you on the medical appointments - and it isn't just retired gentlemen.
ReplyDeleteI hope that your doctor is right and she has removed all of the melanoma. I need to follow your example about glasses too. And it will be expensive. Despite private insurance.
I am sure you attend many more medical appointments than I do EC. I can't see The Alfred having a vested interest in the surgery beyond it being necessary.
DeleteUgh. I think I shall need new glasses soon as I am beginning to struggle, despite having lens replacement surgery 6 years ago.
ReplyDeleteI hope that the melanoma excision is quickly sorted out without too much discomfort. My leg melanoma excision was unfortunately a deep one, not shallow, and I ended up using a stick for a few weeks.
Shall I order those Frankenstein neck bolts for you now?
JayCee, I think here that eye surgery is only private health and costs a few thousand dollars. Wow about your melanoma. I should not complain. That IOM sun must be a killer.
DeleteChoose the colour and style for the bolts but don't order them quite yet.
Plenty of excess flesh! What a compliment!
ReplyDeleteI've had some weeks when there has been some kind of appointment or procedure every day if you count phone calls from some nurse or other just calling to see how I am. It's annoying when you are trying to think about more positive things. Then other times there will be nothing for a month or more, and things return to normal.
Tasker, given my father used to call me Pinhead, something has changed since then. I think you may read JabBlog. It is pity no nurse checked in on her neighbour. She was clearly not in the system, as you are. With my limited experience of your health care system, it is so good and so thorough.
DeleteThe standard of medicine is so low these days. It is all based on meeting the criteria of Medicare billing recommendations. Your first removal of melanoma gets the doc 850 bucks through Medicare rebate. Whether it has spread or not or completely removed does not get the doc any more money. After all, melanoma can work mysterious ways. Anything is possible with the cancer behaviour. So the doc can just use that excuse if anything goes wrong. Alfred hospital is probably not billing Medicare so it is just doing its job at least!
ReplyDeleteRoentare, that sounds like the US medical insurance, in that doctors must do what they can for their patients, with the limitations of what the insurance company will pay for. Here it is meeting Medicare requirements. I can only trust our medical system as I find it, but I do ask questions and keep an open mind.
DeleteIt is amazing to me the things they now know about cancer. To be able to tell the difference between a melanoma that is a 'surface spreader' and one that grows inward makes a big difference in treatment. I've never heard a reason to be grateful for a turkey neck, but it seems like you've come upon one. I am glad things are moving quickly for you. Honestly, (cue Tom Petty) 'the waiting is the hardest part'.
ReplyDeleteDebby, I was disappointed that I need full on surgery to excise what might be there. I've had enough of medical matters of late. A turkey neck! How dare you. I am as smooth and svelte as I was when I was twenty. I am not worried about the surgery or the result but it is just such a bother. We have a week away booked in October. I hope my appointment is well before then or after. After is better.
DeleteWow. A neck lift thrown in? Lucky you.
ReplyDeleteSeriously, though. Lucky you that you had the thing removed in a timely fashion.
I wish Caro.
DeleteYep, my skin cancer doctor really seems to know her stuff.
Hoping all goes well with you neck, be like plastic surgery I guess stretching of the skin. Good to do wider incision and get rid of the bad.
ReplyDeleteNo they the optometrist won't often guarantee old glasses with new lenses especially if from another company.
Margaret, yes it is plastic surgery.
DeleteMy old glasses were bought at the same place. The new lens for the readers is just too thick to fit in the old frames. I think I will have milk bottle glasses.
Thank goodness it is a surface spreader type of melanoma, Andrew. Joe is very happy that it is not a deep one.
ReplyDeleteThat's reassuring Hels. Thank you.
DeleteBugger on the extra neck surgery, but at least they caught it and can remove it so you can keep living and blogging. I can't use multi-focal glasses because I have crossed vision switching between the different fiocuses makes me seasick. Even bi- focals aren't the best and when I need new TV glasses I will just get them plain without a reading section. I used to read while the ads were on, but now I mostly watch things on dvd or usb so no reading gets done once I sit in the recliner.
ReplyDeleteI buy from the cheap selection of frames so usually end up paying nothing or very little after the insurance card is swiped.
River, that's interesting. You do have to get used to multifocals. So do you have three pair of glasses? I thought about that.
DeleteSigh. Money and medicine. Even in a country with national health care such as yours the two concepts seem inextricably bound to each other. I wear glasses and I've always had to buy new frames when getting new lenses, just as I've always had to buy new lenses following eye appointments. No such thing as maintaining the status quo when it comes to sight. As for the backup frame, I always just hang onto the older pair. Nobody's pressured me not to.
ReplyDeleteYou didn't bring up economics when talking about your neck, so there's a least some sort of stopgap on making money off melanoma. Hope all goes well where that's concerned.
Kirk, the difference is perhaps that I knew I needed new glasses. I would not buy new glasses otherwise. My multi focals are four years old.
DeleteI see private doctors and pay about half the fee. Medicare pays the other half. In the case of stitches removal and the discussion I wasn't charged. The surgery will be at one of our top public hospitals and won't cost me anything.
Exciting times - just not the sort of excitement anyone craves. Good to see that your doctor was on the ball.
ReplyDeleteSo true JB. My doctor was amazed that it was a melanoma, but clearly she picked up on something that wasn't right with such an innocent looking spot.
DeleteBetter to get it now, than for it to get you later. Take care of yourself.
ReplyDeleteTP, I feel like such an old crock with various medical issues but I just do what I have to do.
DeleteWell, it's good to get that melanoma off (needless to say) and better safe than sorry when it comes to margins. The extra healing time will be no fun but it's worth it.
ReplyDeleteOpticians make all their money on frames, as I understand it, so it's not surprising they find a way to make us buy more of them!
Steve, I feel better erring on the safe side.
DeleteA friend used to send his frames to Malaysia with the optician prescription and have the lenses made there. It was far cheaper. I think they make money on everything, which is fine in our capitalist society. That's how things work.
Oh, no! Another surgery is no fun. And I'm sorry your new eyeglasses cost so much. Lucky me, my fifty plus year old eyes didn't deteriorate enough for new lenses.
ReplyDeleteDarla, one pair is four years old, so that is not bad. The other is only two years old and I would have thought would last longer.
DeletePart of the Ladies Multi-Medical-Sessions Club. Glad they are fussy about your neck and its alarming bits and are taking care of you. Ouch on the glasses tho.
ReplyDeleteXO
WWW
Lol WWW. I'm afraid with the frames, I have expensive taste.
DeleteDid you toss my comment in the spam bin? Tsk.
ReplyDeleteWhat are talking about River. I've read and answered your comment 😏
DeleteSurface spreader that's good at least. I have a freckled friend who had a large chunk top of her knee removed, of melanoma, like a couple spoonfuls or more of "meat" as she described it. She's had two other melanomas removed thus far but keeps ahead of it.
ReplyDeleteYes Strayer, that kind of skin is so susceptible.
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