Seeing Eye to Eye

I live in a relatively large city.  As with other cities of comparable size we require a variety of doctors and specialists to treat the population.

Cassidy’s visual needs require that she see a pediatric ophthalmologist on a regular basis.  Up until a few years ago this wouldn’t have been a problem.

But then one of the local pediatric ophthalmologists went and hired a hit-man to kill the other pediatric ophthalmologist, a move that effectively eradicated both of their practices.

When all was said and done one family was left without a father/husband.  That in itself was awful enough but it didn’t end there; an entire city’s worth of children are now left without a single doctor who specializes in pediatric ophthalmology.

So we make due.

Like Cass and I did today.

Let me rewind for a second.

Last week I noticed that Cassidy’s glasses are beginning to look like a scratching pad for the cat.  Only we don’t have a cat.  The scratches on her lenses are likely the result of repeatedly being thrown to the ground in frustration.  By her.  Not me.  Regardless of how they came to look like that I figured we should probably go ahead and replace them.  Lest she think that God had a real sense of humor as he went about creation.

Noting that her prescription had expired I called the doctor’s office.  Not a peds doctor mind you.  But the doctor we see is one of the few in town that will work with children.  We were last there in August and I told him that we wouldn’t be needing a new prescription at that time.  I figured they would have made note of it in her file though and that it would be simple enough to fax something to the vision center, right?

Wrong.

I was told that I would have to pay $25 for a prescription.

What the &%$#?

Isn’t that what our co-pay went towards in August?

Apparently not.

Apparently prescriptions require refractions.  And refractions are not covered by insurance.  Each and every time I want a prescription we will pay a $25 fee in addition to the $30 co-pay.

Of course.  Makes perfect sense.

This does not make me happy but I’m left with few options.  So I proceed to schedule an appointment with the technician so that she can give Cassidy a refraction.  The appointment was today at 10:15.

After wrangling and dressing and grooming Cassidy and Jayce we left the house 45 minutes prior to the appointment.

It’s a long drive.

One that requires a significant amount of gas.

Which is not cheap btw.

We arrived five minutes early for the appointment like a good patient should.

I wasn’t exactly thrilled when, upon checking in, the office staff seemed puzzled as to why I would be bringing a child in for a refraction.  They proceeded to argue discuss the matter amongst themselves, though my proximity made me privy to the whole thing.  I’m not fluent in Spanish so I can’t say exactly what was said.  I will say though that Señor Fisher from Spanish 1A did teach me well enough to know that when she said niña, the technician was referring to Cass.

Eventually it was explained to me that the doctor prefers to do all the refractions on young children.

I wasn’t immediately perturbed.

No problem.  I guess I’ll just have to wait for him to fit us in then.

Or not.

The doctor, it seemed, was not in today.

So basically I was left with but one option: make yet another appointment for yet another day.

No problem.

Just forget that I just drove 90 miles round trip for ABSOLUTELY no reason.

Just forget the boatload of things I could have been productively completing at home.

Just forget that now I’ll likely have to pull Cass out of school for an appointment that seems entirely ridiculous to begin with.

No biggie.

It’s just time right?

I’m thinking that when I go in for this next appointment I’m going to smuggle in some white-out.

I plan on making a few friendly revisions to the “missed appointments” policy they so proudly display.