Jamie's opthamology appointment
Jan. 28th, 2007 10:58 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
celticdragonflyOkay, let me see if I can start catching up with the backlog of stuff I want to post from the last couple of days.
Friday I had a LOT of stuff to go do. The original plan was that![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
selenite, who had the day off, was goign to drive me around and help with the kids and be there - but he'd come down sick, the last of us to catch what Jamie brought home from school. So I let him sleep all day - apparently he needed it, poor darling - and fordprfct was kind enough to come help me out. Because if I'd had to do that all solo, all the driving and kid-juggling, wiped out as I am, I don't think I'd've made it home.
First order of the day was Jamie's opthamology appointment. In theory a 6-month followup, actually rather more because of how long it took to get an appointment once I was trying to make it. Got there on time, and then ran into a snag - they asked for the insurance card, which just changed. Now, I actually HAD them - mine and the kids - although admittedly they were still unremoved from their plastic sheets and just stuffed into my purse. But I had them, so all is well, yes? No. It's CIGNA now thatselenite has changed over to Lockheed. And Cigna requires the opthamologist to have a referral from the "primary doctor" first. Eeek. The primary doctor who has gotten listed on the card is some guy I don't know from Adam, and is totally unable to help me. So I call Cigna. Their voice recognition system was hideous, and had me ready to scream. After eventually getting dumped to the dental person, and telling her I'd SAID "medical" repeatedly, begging her NOT to put me back into the voicehell, she transferred me over to a real person on the medical side. Then things got better. Once I got the human, she was quite helpful and kind. She was able to look up Dr. Parsley and get Jamie (and hopefully eventually all of us) switched over to him. She was saying I could just have that office fax something to the opthamologist's. On finding I was already AT the opthamologists and didn't have Parsley's number with me, she was kind enough to put me on hold and herself call the office and talk to them about faxing the referral - even ended up talking to the receptionist at the opthamologist's office, getting the exact details that no, this isn't a "standard vision exam" and her tossing all the correct phrases about strabismus and the particular type of amblyopia and even the actual insurance CODES. Yay. I was eventually told yes, Parsley's office would send a referral, but it'd be a bit because they had someone else's to do first. I know that office is quite dependable, so I happily signed the "yes, I'll pay the whole thing if they don't" form and we were able to go on with things.
They checked his eyes - he was able to be much more cooperative with the process this time than he had been last time. I told them about the current pair being his third set of frames, and just what we'd gone through to get him used to wearing them - and he's b een pretty good nowadays, although this last week he's been back to pulling them off. The doctor pointed out that he's outgrown the frames, they're getting too tight for him - I feel bad I hadn't realized. They're keeping his farsightedness prescription the same, adding 0.50 cylinder for astigmatism. Given how much astigmatism is in the family, that did not surprise me at all. They did NOT have to dilate his eyes this time, yay. We go back in 6 months for another followup.
Then off we went to the opticians. They're close to his opthamologist, awfully far from us, but they fix ANYTHING except losing them for free. We PAID for one pair of glasses, and he's gone through three sets of frames and two sets of lenses and many many repairs. You stick with that sorta thing.
The first time we had to hold Jamie down and try to force glasses onto him for sizing. This time he wanted to sit right down and play with trying on all the glasses in the Fisher Price tray. What a difference. The pink ones WERE kinda cute... Unfortunately, he's pretty much outgrown everything in that tray, which is the guy's most recommended stuff for kids his age. Jamie is not the size of a standard toddler/preschooler. He showed us another pair, of the superflexible metal type. We're going to pay a bit more for these, but hey, worthwhile - I think the optician is really hoping he doesn't have to fix these so often. These don't come with the cable temples, but it sounds like they can be added. The sample pair was brown. He said they come in blue, too, and Jamie did look adorable in the first blue pair. I said that'd be great, but brown is also just fine. He's ordering them in two different sizes to see which fits Jamie best, and is ordering at least the blue, I think maybe the brown too. When they come in, he'll call us and we can go back in and have them fitted.
Friday I had a LOT of stuff to go do. The original plan was that
selenite, who had the day off, was goign to drive me around and help with the kids and be there - but he'd come down sick, the last of us to catch what Jamie brought home from school. So I let him sleep all day - apparently he needed it, poor darling - and fordprfct was kind enough to come help me out. Because if I'd had to do that all solo, all the driving and kid-juggling, wiped out as I am, I don't think I'd've made it home. First order of the day was Jamie's opthamology appointment. In theory a 6-month followup, actually rather more because of how long it took to get an appointment once I was trying to make it. Got there on time, and then ran into a snag - they asked for the insurance card, which just changed. Now, I actually HAD them - mine and the kids - although admittedly they were still unremoved from their plastic sheets and just stuffed into my purse. But I had them, so all is well, yes? No. It's CIGNA now that
selenite has changed over to Lockheed. And Cigna requires the opthamologist to have a referral from the "primary doctor" first. Eeek. The primary doctor who has gotten listed on the card is some guy I don't know from Adam, and is totally unable to help me. So I call Cigna. Their voice recognition system was hideous, and had me ready to scream. After eventually getting dumped to the dental person, and telling her I'd SAID "medical" repeatedly, begging her NOT to put me back into the voicehell, she transferred me over to a real person on the medical side. Then things got better. Once I got the human, she was quite helpful and kind. She was able to look up Dr. Parsley and get Jamie (and hopefully eventually all of us) switched over to him. She was saying I could just have that office fax something to the opthamologist's. On finding I was already AT the opthamologists and didn't have Parsley's number with me, she was kind enough to put me on hold and herself call the office and talk to them about faxing the referral - even ended up talking to the receptionist at the opthamologist's office, getting the exact details that no, this isn't a "standard vision exam" and her tossing all the correct phrases about strabismus and the particular type of amblyopia and even the actual insurance CODES. Yay. I was eventually told yes, Parsley's office would send a referral, but it'd be a bit because they had someone else's to do first. I know that office is quite dependable, so I happily signed the "yes, I'll pay the whole thing if they don't" form and we were able to go on with things. They checked his eyes - he was able to be much more cooperative with the process this time than he had been last time. I told them about the current pair being his third set of frames, and just what we'd gone through to get him used to wearing them - and he's b een pretty good nowadays, although this last week he's been back to pulling them off. The doctor pointed out that he's outgrown the frames, they're getting too tight for him - I feel bad I hadn't realized. They're keeping his farsightedness prescription the same, adding 0.50 cylinder for astigmatism. Given how much astigmatism is in the family, that did not surprise me at all. They did NOT have to dilate his eyes this time, yay. We go back in 6 months for another followup.
Then off we went to the opticians. They're close to his opthamologist, awfully far from us, but they fix ANYTHING except losing them for free. We PAID for one pair of glasses, and he's gone through three sets of frames and two sets of lenses and many many repairs. You stick with that sorta thing.
The first time we had to hold Jamie down and try to force glasses onto him for sizing. This time he wanted to sit right down and play with trying on all the glasses in the Fisher Price tray. What a difference. The pink ones WERE kinda cute... Unfortunately, he's pretty much outgrown everything in that tray, which is the guy's most recommended stuff for kids his age. Jamie is not the size of a standard toddler/preschooler. He showed us another pair, of the superflexible metal type. We're going to pay a bit more for these, but hey, worthwhile - I think the optician is really hoping he doesn't have to fix these so often. These don't come with the cable temples, but it sounds like they can be added. The sample pair was brown. He said they come in blue, too, and Jamie did look adorable in the first blue pair. I said that'd be great, but brown is also just fine. He's ordering them in two different sizes to see which fits Jamie best, and is ordering at least the blue, I think maybe the brown too. When they come in, he'll call us and we can go back in and have them fitted.
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Date: 2007-01-28 09:34 pm (UTC)"For she was once a patient of mine..."