3 Month Eye Check

I took Egypt to her 3 month eye check today. There was no real noticeable vision change (in my estimation, she missed about half of the pictures/letters). Doctor said we could wait three months or get glasses right now. Egypt was so excited and of course wanted to go pick out pink frames! I told her we would look, but probably not buy. When I got up to the window to schedule the next appointment, the woman says "that will be $44 please." I told her I already paid the co-pay. She told me that my insurance viewed the need for glasses as a 'medical' condition. Um. Hello? How is needing glasses not a vision reason? They are billing the need for glasses from the JRA, which in their eyes is a medical condition. I doubt that the JRA caused the near-sightedness, so it's not right that they bill it under medical instead of vision. She went back and asked the doctor if they could change it and he dropped the fee.

Then, since I only had Egypt with me, we drove to Costco and picked out two frames, which was cheaper than the FRAMES ONLY at the eye clinic! Crazy. She was a little sad leaving without the glasses. She was expecting to be able to walk out of there with new glasses. She informed me two weeks was way too long to wait.

I also had a bit of good news arrive in the mail the other day. About a month ago I applied for care through the local Shriner's Hospital. They do orthopedic care, burn care, spinal cord rehab and cleft lip/palate care. I got a letter saying that my application had been approved and our appointment is scheduled for mid-December. I really hope that they will be able to help us out. Holland's care is costing so much and Egypt's physical therapy, cortisone injections and shoe lifts are getting costly as well. Now I just have to call all her caregivers and ask that they send over her records.

On a side note, I called Holland's case manager for his IEP. I told her I needed to drop the speech goals. The times the speech person has available either don't work, or use up too much time (2 1/2 hours for a 20 minute appointment. Drive time, plus waiting until Romania gets out of school to drive him home). The case manager is calling a meeting to discuss the "inconvenient scheduling times". I told her that I do plenty of inconvenient things, but it's not just about the scheduling issue. There are too many transitions in Holland's school days. He has weekly doctor appointments, monthly doctor appointments, two outside the home classes, Egypt's doctor appointments, and oh yeah, actual school! We have to meet with our Educational Specialist once a week and then the added speech on top of that. Not only am I feeling overwhelmed with the schedule we're on, but I'm dealing with so many behavior issues right now. I think I'm going to type up my schedule for the next three months so this case manager can see that it's not just about me saying this is too much trouble. If she could only walk in my shoes for a week, I'm sure she'd sing a different tune. Maybe I'll just tell her to read my blog.