Hi all,
I'm continuing to do well with my stimulator. Tonight's a bad night for me, but the pain involved in this "bad night" is still about
30% better than that of my normal "bad night." I'm hoping that I can decrease the pain a little more by cranking up my stim, which I will do shortly (increasing the stim causes an increase in local muscle contraction/causes my eye to close, so if I am say reading, I have to turn the sim down to a med/low setting).
I saw my ophthalmologist today & got better news that I ever could have dreamed of. My eye alignment has improved by 30%, all because of the stim (less pain = improved function). Needless to say, we were both ecstatic. There wasn't all good news though. In the last 2 months, my actual visual acuity has decreased significantly in both eyes, although hopefully, that can at least be partially corrected by new glasses. Other than that, things have stayed the same. I still have all these weird rare neurological problems with my eye & my tracking is still horrible, but overall I'm happy. We still have no diagnosis, but that's no surprise. It's been almost 4 yrs already.
I am so glad that I waited to have my stim procedures done at the other hospital (if you remember, I was initially supposed to have my trial & implant done at another hospital, but at the last minute, the hospital decided not to take my insurance, so I had to reschedule for a different hospital which did take my insurance), as I got the hospital bill today. The bill for both surgeries totaled around $150,000! I was floored! That doesn't even include the anesthesia, the surgeon's fees, or the Medtronics fees!! The crazy thing is that my insurance only paid the hospital $10,000 & if I had had this done at the first hospital, My parents & I would have been stuck with the whole $150,000 bill & expected to pay it (I expected the bill to be a lot, but I expected it to be about
$100,000 less than it actually was). It's just so shocking, because working in a veterinary practice that uses many of the same drugs, equipment, etc, that human hospitals use, it is amazing to see difference in pricing (we're talking $100's vs $100,000's).
As for the rest of the week, I'm basically working every day. Today was supposed to be my day off, but I got called in to work because one of the techs was sick. We've been incredibly busy lately. One night last week I didn't leave work until 10 pm & this weekend I had to work not only all day Saturday, but Sunday as well (we had a major emergency - A dog got heat stroke hiking & was located over mile off a trail in the woods & had to be rescued by the Fire Department. It took 2 hrs just to get it out of the woods). Hopefully this week is a little less crazy!
Hope all is well with everyone.
hugs,
Skeye
Post Edited (skeye) : 7/26/2010 7:03:09 PM (GMT-6)