Posted by storm rider on March 29, 2006, at 15:49:05
In reply to Re: TOPAMAX and Hypothermia, posted by bridgey1128 on March 28, 2006, at 19:48:38
> Hmm makes me glad I pay for my insurance when I can get an appointment within a week usually at the most if not the same day or the next. Sometimes there are benefits to actually paying for one's insurance even if it's out the wazoo. Better Dr's, better medical care, but unfortunate that it's almost so expensive that one major medical mishap will put you in the poor house, although you will recover beautifully to pay for it for the rest of your life. :P
We have private insurance as well as the provincial medical insurance plan and are really much better off than most. All of my medical care is paid for including prescriptions, private or semi-private hospital rooms, private nurses, physiotherapy, home nursing, personal support workers at home should I need them and on and on...
as I am not allowed to drive until the seizures are controlled for at least a year, even the cost of driving to the city for appointments and treatment is covered...
however as there is such a shortage of doctors and hospital beds because of the short-sightedness of a previous provincial government in whose wisdom it was deemed cost-saving to have fewer doctors and because many doctors prefer to go into specialties instead of general practice and some of the specialties require longer lengths of residency than others, it is not always possible to get an immediate appointment...
if I need to see a neurologist, I can get an emergency appointment within three days... or through the emergency department with in three hours... via ambulance, I prefer to avoid that route if possible :(
however we have few retinologists in this area and only the two eye institutes...
the one where I had all the surgery done last year specialises in certain areas, and the one to which I went for the testing because of the tegritol build-up has other areas of interest apparently...
the person I see now is the leading man in his field and has arranged to see me before his normal office hours at the behest of my opthalmologist...
so as I say, I am no longer making jokes about it..my vision is blurry at times, reading is difficult and that really upsets me. Reading is a passion of mine... and necessary to my work...
I am also a photographer... hard to shoot a photo if one cannot see the colours involved...
blues, greens and black are a confusion for me as they all look the same... and green and grey are the same as well...
and then there is the red problem... it blends into greens very well...
and at times everything is sepia or rust-coloured...
like living in a photo from the late 1800s...
I still joke about my F7 moments but the sepia moments are no longer funny...
have to see what this chap has to say...
and see if I can make an appointment the same day with the eye surgeon to line up an appointment to finish the rest of his work...
maybe see the guy who does the work on my hand the same day too...get it all over at once...
I have a month off in May...
and black eyes won't matter on the radio...
but come June we start taping a series to run in the fall...
and then in September we are live again with Spectator...
including eating disorders and children and several topics that really interest me... and I hope to have someone come and talk about tegretol and the damage it does... while I can still see to enjoy the momentkat
poster:storm rider
thread:5053
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20060329/msgs/626207.html