Working on two posts I started yesterday when I couldn’t hold anything down or anything in.

Starting about Friday I was starting to feel “under the weather”. All weekend I got feeling worse. I really was starting to suffer on Monday. Buy Tuesday at 3 am the stomach distress was really painful, and by 4 am I was throwing up. Also I was having with the other end, the part attached to what I sit on. All day I would try to eat and end up in the bathroom. Also a lot of gas was coming both ways when there was nothing solid to come out either end. Plus I felt horrible. I spent most of the day in bed Tuesday, I had spent a lot of Monday in bed, some of the day Sunday in bed … I think you can see the progression.

I let a lot of people down on Tuesday. Randy had gotten me a gift and wanted to talk. I was so sick that I barely was able to open the package before a trip to the bathroom and back to bed. Ron had planned to go out for lunch, it was going to be a celebration of returning to more normal times, because the only time since covid hit in 2020 we have been out to eat was with Randy, and then again with Randy and his folks. Sadly it won’t happen this week.

This morning I woke at 4 am, my normal time to wake. I walked to the bathroom and I was so nauseous I knew I better not try to get up. I stayed in bed, until 5:30 am. Got up, even had a couple cups of coffee and tried to eat a bit of food. It was a very small bit. But it stayed down. Until …

Ron got up and I started moving around helping him get the trash ready to be taken out. The Park now insists it all be out by 8 am, but rarely do they pick it up right after that. But if they do and you call or put trash out after they go by, they won’t pick it up, but leave it. Before it was 10 am and everyone seemed to have it out by then. If someone forget and put it out after, when a park worker went by on their golf cart they would just grab it, taking it with them. But the park is going much more corporate and much more focused on profit over people’s happiness.

All the movement and bending caused both ends to open up again and expel their contents. Damn it. So I am not quite as bad as yesterday but still not able to function, and as you see thinking is harder for me than normal. Ron has given me medication to help me with it all. I am trying to catch up, but before anyone goes to the effort to remind my self to take care of myself, I am doing that, and trust me I am putting needing to throw up, get to the toilet, and lay down as much as I can stand with my bone, spine, muscle pain.

So the post I started yesterday morning will again have to wait as I go lay down. Oh the pill Ron gave me is working, but not enough. Best to all, and sorry I missed your posts and comments. While I might be able to sometimes read from the toilet, it is often not the first thing on my mind. 😥🤢🤮😣Hugs. Best Wishes. Scottie

I started this post about 8:20 am right after Ron took the trash out. It is now 1 pm, and I am going back to bed again. Hugs. Scottie

So yesterday was a bad costly day

Some background for those new here. We take care of three cats, two also mooch / are fed by the neighbors also. One is our house cat Odie, then there is Tupac who is an inside / outside cat, and then there is Smokey an outside feral female who hangs out with Tupac and she will come into the family room to eat but won’t stay. Even though Tupac eats most of his food at our home, spends most of his day inside with us, if it is a nice night a lot of nights he likes to spend outside some or all of the night. If it is cold or raining he stays inside. Even though others feed them, it always seems to fall to Ron and me who takes Tupac to the vet and pay the bills, even though it seems the others have a lot more money. Maybe that is why. When Ron told the neighbor woman today who we see feeding them the costs, well she did not offer to help.

We have been noticing Tupac was getting thinner and thinner and thinner. Last year when we took him in for his shots and deworming he was also thin, but then once dewormed started to gain weight. But like I said, we noticed that he was losing weight fast. The last week or longer, he has spent more and more time inside. Then last Wednesday morning he threw up a lot of green bile looking liquid. Well sometimes he catches local rabbits or squirrels, other small game and eats it. So we worry he will get something. Or he will eat something that will make him sick that someone left out or an anti-cat person who wanted to poison the cats. His stomach made sounds all the night before and that day. But Thursday morning I found clear liquid throw up in the kitchen. Friday morning I found the same thing in the hallway. He had been staying in all week, which was not normal, as I already said. Again he was not eating or even drinking. Ron talked to one of the other people feeding them and she said Tupac quit eating last week also. I got him to drink a little water.

When Ron got up Friday morning I told him we should call the vet’s office. We had been talking about it, and knowing it was Friday I did not want to pay the costs of an emergency weekend visit, and Tupac was getting more thin and not eating or drinking. But as we had no appointment the vet’s office said we could bring him in, drop him off and they would see him when they could. That cost us $110.00 alone. But the worst was to come. Turned out our worst fears were not the problem, which meant Tupac was not going to die of feline leukemia or need surgery we couldn’t afford. But … it turns out he had an infection in his ear, maybe from a fight where he got scratched. The vet cleaned all that and gave him something for it. But … It seems his thyroid is seriously jacked up, running really too high. The test reads normal at 4 and Tupac was 12. He will need daily medication. The vet gave us two weeks of pills and we need to contact an online animal pharmacy for a medicated cream to rub on his ear which takes the place of the pills. We have never been able to get a cat to take a pill. This morning Ron tried to get Tupac to eat and take the pill. He refused both.

But then the hammer dropped. The total vet bill came to $530.00 and that was before we order the cream she gave us a prescription for. That is going to be more expensive than the pills the vet warned us. We had only $270.00 in both bank accounts until Ron gets his monthly Social Security late in the month. I transferred money from savings. So with Ron’s medication in January needing to be fully paid, something in February that needed to be paid, and the cat’s vet bill I had taken out of savings so far this year a total of $1,140.00 with no clue how to put it back if medicine and medical bills don’t slow down. I guess my new glasses will have to wait until fall, if not until next year.

What had made the day even worse for me and upset me was that I had spent all week catching up with comments and others blogs. Seriously when I went to bed Thursday evening I had everything caught up. Friday morning due to Ron having made a large roast, potatoes, corn, and gravy supper meal there were a lot of dishes and kitchen mess. So while we waited to hear from the vet, I helped Ron clean up and do dishes. Then in the morning while doing dishes Ron asked me to make a tomato red sauce. I had to use tomato puree instead of sauce as Ron got the wrong stuff. It made a nice sweet basil sauce. Ron made his wonderful meatballs. But by the time I got the sauce done, the bread ready to bake, the plates, strainers, and serving things set up I was wiped out. I had the water ready for the spaghetti but I couldn’t stay standing up even with all the break through medications. I was done, so Ron took over.

What this did blog wise was make me basically miss an entire day and by the time I opened up the bell notifications just before going to bed, I had lost some of the older comments and posts. Well there is another day. As always if you leave a comment and I have not responded to it in a few days send me another. I am not sure how much I can do today because I am already suffering badly sitting in my chair. I suffered through making eggs for breakfast because Ron loves how I make eggs over medium, cooked whites, runny yellow yoke. So now you’re caught up. Hugs. Scottie

What I do, sometimes frustrating, but what I love to do

I want in my life to give power to those who are poor and don’t have power, to champion those abused and work to change the society that oppresses and abuses minorities. So this was my day. What a day it is has been.

I slept well last night, something uncommon for me, and felt well and rested when I got up. I did the morning tasks of feeding all the cats, inside, outside, and the one that stays in when it is cold and out when warm. It was cold last night, so Tupac slept the night in our bed, alternating snuggling me and Ron. All cats fed morning breakfast I started my morning work on the computer, quickly checking the things, glancing over news feeds before settling in to read, post, or respond.

At 7:40 I started gathering up trash. The park recently sent a notice around that instead of having your trash out at 10 am as it always has been, they demand it be out now by 8 am. Or you have to find a way to dispose of it yourself. The park has been really reorienting the last few years to a much younger desperate working families and taking a much harder dictatorial line with the rules, ignoring some long standing ones and implementing new onces all designed to gain more market share of younger families needing housing. So they insist the trash be in white plastic trash bags and be out before most of the older people here are up. And no, you cannot put it out the night before, we have far too many nighttime critter bandits that would tear into the bags and spread the trash everywhere, which the park now refuses to clean up as they claim it is the homeowner’s responsibility to do so.

In the process, I wake Ron getting the trash cans in our bedroom and our bedroom bathroom. He said he would get up, which while I said he did not have to, I was glad he did. My shoulders have gotten real bad as the MRI showed with torn muscles and decayed shoulder joint bones, so pulling heavy bags out of a trash cans is not only a real effort but it hurts a lot to do. He knows this so he got up, lately he has not been sleeping a lot during the night and sleeps late into the morning until around 9 am.

Normally when Ron sleeps that late I eat breakfast earlier myself as I am hunger after getting up normally between 3:30 to 4 am, but I am trying to make myself stay in bed until 5 am. But since he got up, I offered to make breakfast of fried over easy medium eggs. For us that means eggs where the whites are fully cooked yet the yoke is still runny and yellow. Ron loves when I cook the eggs that way, he can’t seem to do it. But to tell the truth eggs in a hot pan can change so quickly you have to pay attention with no diversions and be able to watch the eggs themselves, because as I said they can go in 10 seconds from great to over cooked with hard yokes.

At that point, Ron and I made a grocery list. He gets his Social Security money on the third Wednesday of each month. We have had a few hard months and needed supplies. I have been trying to go with him, but Ron decided I had already overdone and needed to stop a bit. I had started a couple laundry loads, and he wanted me to rest. So he went out. While he was out, I got the call.

The call came from a lady we know here in the park, I have done a lot of work for her computer wise over 20 years. She is now into her 80s, and lives on a very restricted income. When her husband died some years back, I helped her with all the needed computer stuff to insure she got her benefits and other things. Her husband was a retired Marine, and he had dementia / Alzheimer. She was in grief and over her head, Ron and me along with other in the park stood by and with her getting her through this. She is also the highly religious catholic lady that a long time ago I was in her home helping her with a computer problem when she was telling me about her god and how she knew he was real. I finally had enough and looked at her and angry said “You know he is real, then where was he when I was a kid getting repeatedly raped, watching and enjoying it”? She did not say anything for a few minutes as I turned back to her computer. Then she said, “I am sorry I upset you, I just … I just know he is real because I feel him”. We did not talk about her god after that, but we did stay on good terms, maybe friends with her always promising me to help anytime I needed it as then I did not drive and offering to take me anywhere I wanted to go. I felt bad after for exploding that way, but I had been having nightmares and flashbacks, so was very raw. I was in the wrong, but I wish she had been able to see I did not believe or feel like she did about her god. She went to church services 3 or 4 times a week, volunteered at the church and their thrift store. She really is a simple woman, who deeply clings to her faith. She doesn’t have much, and her belief is important to her. Since that day she doesn’t push her god, but I have helped her out by giving her an older printer I was replacing so she could print the church bulletins, I quietly gave her some ink for it that “I found in a closet” when I found out she couldn’t do the bulletins because she was out of ink. I keep helping her at no cost and she calls me a saint and offers to help me any time. She will leave small bags of cat food once in a while at our door, knowing we are taking care of the outside cats. I know on her limited income that is a large cost for her. I wonder if she understands we see her on the camera’s doing it.

So where is this getting to be very long almost a novella length post going? Ron had left to get the groceries and I had settled down at the computer when the call came in. She was in a panic asking if she could bring her laptop to my home. She had a chance to do a pilgrimage hosted by her church to a famous Catholic Church in France, she had saved enough money but to be able to do it she had to find a second person to go with her. That saved her over a thousand dollars and it was limited to a small number of people and she had to get her and her other person entered right away. This was so important to her, she had wanted to go to the Holy Land but now was worried they would kill her. I calmed her down.

I questioned what the problem was. Seems for months she has not been able to get online with her laptop but could with her phone. For the history as she is very limited in funds, I struggled for years to keep her internet at the lowest cost possible. So after the hurricane Ian I had to argue with Comcast for her and get her back online. She accepted a limited metered data level for a lower price. I did not know she had a problem since then. But now she was telling me she had not been able to be online on her laptop for many months, that when she tried to go to a website Comcast webpage came up and she was too confused to figure out what to do. But as her phone worked and she got her email, she did not call me. Side note, we talked about that and she will call me in the future.

So as her bringing her computer to my house wouldn’t let me fix the problem she was having signing on to the internet at home, I told her I would come to her home. When I got there, she was beside herself about not being able to go on this pilgrimage, something I really don’t understand myself, but I told the inner Scottie that I would do what it took to make it happen on the computer side. Oh wow.

Well the first problem was her computer had somehow been shifted from her own router to the Xfinity hotspot system. For those that don’t know if you have Xfinity / Comcast and use their equipment they have a side channel off the router that anyone with a Comcast account can use. You simply put in your username and password when using the hotspot. I refuse to allow anyone to piggyback on my internet connection, so I don’t use Comcast’s equipment. I got her back on her own internet rather quickly.

But then we ran into the worst thing which I hate when I deal with older people on internet / computer problems. They don’t know their passwords, any records of them are so muddled that they have dozens of them they insisted we keep trying … and so on. Or they have multiple user names for the same place. I have gotten to the point where after the third or fourth attempt that they insist on is the correct one, I demand we change the password. But then they cannot remember the recovery stuff and so on. Got that fixed and a new password, but then the struggle becomes getting them to write it all down crossing out the wrong ones.

We ran in circles trying to go from her phone to the computer to where she wanted to go. I stopped, and look at her computer. She had all her saved passwords in Chrome I knew as I set it up, but it had been changed to Microsoft Edge, as had a lot of stuff on her computer. So I got her Windows 11 computer, which I dislike as a program as I find it hard to work with compared to 10, back on Chrome and able to sign into everything.

This is the next morning 2 / 22 / 2024 about 7:30 in the morning. As I was writing the above last evening, I decided to help Ron with supper. He had the deep fryer out and was deep frying breaded chicken patties and French fries. Plus he made salads for us. I ate a full chicken patty burger with pickles and lettuce along with a dash of yellow mustard. To that I added a lot of French fries. Plus my salad. Why did I eat so much you ask, as normally I am a small eater? A week and half ago I had ten trigger point injections in my back. Steroids. They raise heck with my blood sugar and how hungry I get. After eating, I helped pick stuff up, then went as I get very sleepy after eating went to bed.

When Ron came to bed he twice had to gently wake me. I was having bad dreams again, and shouting out, I guess I was trying to call out for him, shouting his name. It is something I have been doing a lot more of the last 6 to 8 months, shouting out for him. I must have been having sleep paralysis but what I experience is not being able to turn, move, or able to speak. When that happens as I struggle to move like I am being restrained I try desperately to force my words out. Often in my dream they come out slowly slurred and muffled, if at all. So I try harder with all my might to shout. What I shout can change, it used to be no no no or don’t hurt me don’t hurt me, or a combination of those. Now according to Ron I tend to shout his name, and sometimes he will come to the bedroom to ask me if I called him, knowing what that might mean.

So back to the story from yesterday. Got her back into the place she needed, on the sign-up page, and as she started filling it out I left for home. Ron had gotten home, and I was helping him put away groceries when my phone rang. She needed to put a picture / scanned image of her passport on the application. I had given her a multifunction printer, scanner, fax, copier some years ago. But she couldn’t use it she said as it was out of ink. Well we don’t need the ink to scan and save an image. But no matter how I tried to talk her through the procedure it was not working. So I went back to her house. Well first the printer was not connected to her router. But she couldn’t remember the changed password for the router, she just knew that the person who set it up gave it the name of her old router and new password. So I decided to save that fight for another time. I suggest we use her phone to take a photo and send the image to her Gmail. First issue everything on her phone was huge. Super large font. Then when we took the picture we couldn’t send it, her settings were to iCloud and not her Gmail, so I again did not want to screw with it. I just took the picture on my phone, sent it to her Gmail, then I opened her Gmail, saved the image to her computer, went back to the sign-up page and posted the image. They took it. I made sure she was good on everything and went home. I called her back later before supper and she had made it in time and had her spot saved.

Last note. Ron and I are finding ourselves on a tight budget right now. But I know the ink for that brother printer was very inexpensive on Amazon, like $12 dollars for a bunch of it. I will wait a few days and ask her what model it is and see what I can get off Amazon. And that was my day. Hugs. Scottie

I am so fucking pissed

I often don’t feel well or have mind fog. Sometimes l get busy or for some other reason I need to take extra medications. Strong amounts of morphine, muscle relaxers, others. Everything makes my mind foggy. Plus last year I had a TIA ischemic event that messed with my ability to think and even speak properly. Also sometimes I just don’t feel up to dealing with other blog posts and even comments.

So I developed a system of saving open chrome pages of posts or comments in tabs, and building tabs up in different days windows. Sometimes I end up with 6 or 8 open windows saved with over 400 tabs in them combined. Over the last 6 or so weeks I had 8 open windows with over 60 to 80 tabs each. I could even close them and shut down the computer, as long as I did not clean the history.

I have three utility programs that are set to be run manually that clean the entire computer, including the internet browsers histories. Set to be run manually. Well one of those updated this morning. I never thought much of it, it happens a lot automatically. This time it bit me hard in the ass. See this time it reset my clean the browsers settings to automatically when closed. I needed to do some updates and restart the computer. No problem as I could close the tabs and then when the computer updated and restarted I could just reopen the saved tabs. I let the updates happen and restarted the computer.

When the computer restarted, I noticed CCleaner running. That seemed strange. I realized why when I opened chrome, opened the history to restore the more than 6 weeks of saved tabs full of comments and posts to find … everything gone! WTF. I checked the history on other devices, it was there, but the history for Play Blogger was gone. Damn it all to …

Seems when CCleaner updated, it changed the cleanup settings to automatically when closed. When I closed the browser windows the program cleaned the history.

I will try the hardest way to do comments, by going back through the admin board. But if you did leave an unanswered comment in the last 7 weeks, please let me know, I can look up the post to see the comments. I am so frustrated. And just want to forget the entire thing and go watch videos and play Halo. Hugs. Scottie

Update to roof saga

As I said before, we bought / had an expensive roof put on the house. The roof company is well known and reputable, and in the time we have had their roof product they have been great in responding to any complaint. The roof comes with a lifetime warranty … excepting cat 5 hurricanes. So long story short which is hard for me, we had problems after we got the new roof.

The person they sent out was a very helpful and knowledgeable, and he helped us a lot. When he took off the kitchen bottom of the skylight water dripped out. He also found what we had not, that the bathroom skylight also had water in it. He replaced the bathroom one, but the kitchen one he said not to put back up as the material was too damaged and it might just give way. He said he wouldn’t have used the same sealant the first repair team did. So he took lots of pictures of the inside spots, and the roof. Then he went back to talk to the manager.

When he came back, he went on the roof and caulked every thing he said he could think of that might need it. We talked with him a long time after he got off the roof and came inside. We explained to him how every time we try to repair the house, something goes badly wrong. I told him how the first week we owned the house the refrigerator fell throw the floor, the third week I fell through the fool in the bedroom in front of Ron’s closet. I told him the house was cursed. We all laughed.

So at first he said after a couple rains to call the company back. I was not comfortable with that because that put it on us and to again call them and get the call service and all that. But after I talked to him, he said he would put it in his schedule to come and check in on us. Also the company will fix the damage around the skylight so it is secure again.

At this point I am not sure what more could have been expected or achieved. We got the company to address and deal with the issue. On the other hand, we have another issue problem to deal with in the kitchen. Below I will put the pictures. I will say this guy had years with the company, and he did not seem impressed with the work the repair team did. But we just need a roof that doesn’t leak, and he even said the recent mold problem we had was due to the roof leak, in his opinion. I doubt I will get much done the rest of the day. I have been awake since 2:30 am, and I got up at 4:04 am. With no naps, I am tired. Hugs. Scottie

Our nearly $17,000 roof still leaks.

So after hurricane Ian tore our home up, we had a new AMS metal roof put on. The old one lasted a long time and survived a lot of hurricanes undamaged, until the last one. But what roof is designed to withstand cat 5 hurricane strength eye wall winds for over 8 hours.

But the next rainstorm the inside ceiling tiles showed more water damage. Then a lot more. We called the company. They sent out a couple of guys, and they had to fix sometimes and seal the ridge. All fixed they said.

A couple of weeks later we had rain, and we had more leaks. Again we called the company. They said they would send someone out. Then last week it rained hard. Really long, a day and night. And water spots got worse and stayed wet. Ron called the company again.

Today they sent a nice guy out. He looked at it all, he touched the spot around the skylight. He took the skylight bottom out and water dripped out. Everything is wet. Then he went to the bathroom and took that skylight bottom out, it also was wet. He took pictures of everything. Told us he did not like the kind of sealant the first crew used. He said one problem is the inner roof has a plastic sheet over it, so that it is hard to tell where the water is coming in as it runs down the plastic. He took pictures to send to the manager and is calling him. I will let you know. But the good news is he showed Ron how to lower the skylight bottom to add length for the new ceiling tiles. Hugs. Scottie

My day, cat food cans, Ron sick

So we are taking care of three cats. One full inside fat diabetic cat Named Odie, one inside / outside cat who is sort of gray with white paws also a white tiny mustache, who is named Tupac. Then there is the totally feral untrusting outside cat we all call Smokey.

We feed the inside cat three times a day as he wants with wet food. At night we leave him with what ever wet food he did not eat to finish.

Tupac we feed as many times as he wants when he is in the house, he is very tiny and slim, we give him drops but if we miss them for a few days he starts to spot on stuff. Often Tupac will come in and go straight to the bedroom rather than eat. But he tends to spend most days inside with us, and nights unless it is really cold, outside with smokey.

Smokey seems to be a nearly feral female who distrusts most people or close quarters. She has gotten to trust Ron and I enough to come with in a foot or so of our legs. She will respond to our voice and come very close to us as long as we make no sudden movement. She startles very easily. So she eats her food, both dry and wet, on in the family room Ron built out of the carport. The dance all these cats play is amazing to watch if you care for them.

So while Ron and I pay for the vet bills for Tupac and Odie we have not gotten Smokey into a carrier to do so. But to feed these three every time they demand food takes 90 cans of wet food plus a bunch of dry food.

While Ron was getting Meow Mix for the family room dish, inside we have been giving Odie Fancy feast and mixing both for Tupac. But today Ron came home and said he got two bags of food made by the companies that make the treaties we give the cats. Temptations.

I looked at the ingredients and stuff and it seems OK to me, but both / two bags were about the same amount we paid for one of the bags of Fancy Feast. Hey if they eat it I am OK with that.

So here is the real point of the post. We go through about 3 cans a day which means is 90 a month. Depending on how many days in the month or when we order, we sometimes order two of the 90 cans a month. Each order costs us $78.74. We get

So, to the point of the post. Are you not glad I am finally getting to it? When the cases come in we have to wait until the old cans are gone and then do the “CAT FOOD CAN SHUFFLE” Ron prefers to put it off until I do it. Below is the pictures of the cat food can shuffle. Hugs. Scottie

This is the place we store the cans and where after the shuffle they go.

First I have to open each of the three boxes of 30 cans each and put them on the counter.

Then I start shuffling them. This is the part Ron hates and why he leaves it to me. If you look at the first pictures you will see the cans well mixed, so the cats don’t get the same can of food at any two feedings. I would get bored if every meal was the same as the last. Ron will keep opening cans until he finds something the cats like and will eat. So below is the rest of the photos. Hugs. Scottie

Odie has fallen in thrall of our radiator heater.

Ron is out grocery shopping. I want to start going with him, and have a few times, but lately I am not up to it and there are things I need to take care of while he is shopping. I was doing the dishes so he would have counters to put the groceries on when he got home. Yes, I am tired. But the funniest thing happened while I was doing them.

It has been cold on and off here in Florida during January and February. This last few nights it has been around 46 degrees or lower at sunrise. So before he goes to bed Ron turns the radiator on low with the temp dial about 72. The heater we have in our bedroom bathroom heats both rooms and as I get up about every hour to pee, when it gets cool enough I turn it on. Between the both of them they heat the main space and we keep the other doors closed until it warms up outside. Also the electronics in the Pink Palace keep the room about 74 on the coldest nights so far. I just have to remember to leave the computers up and running with the door closed.

So to the point of the post, while I was doing the dishes Odie wanted food. I gave it to him. But Odie is older, we think at least 12 but more likely older, and not in the best health. So while I went back to doing dishes after he finished eating, he went to the radiator heater that he often lays next to when it is running. We have noticed that when it is active he will lay near it or against it. He clearly loves the warm heat coming off it.

So he finished eating, came out, stretched out next to the heater. But no heat came out. So he got closer. Then he tried hitting it with his paw. Finally, as I was rushing to get my phone, I saw him rubbing his face on the fins. Yes even though the house was warm enough I gave in and turned on the radiator to the lower setting. But that was not working fast enough for him and he was getting upset so I went over and activated the medium 1,600 watt setting. That made it heat up fast enough and he laid back down next to it happy. As he fell asleep, I turned it back to the lower watt setting. Below is the pictures of our really spoiled fat cat. Hugs. Scottie

Eye doctor visit

I just got home about 45 minutes ago and my vision is still more blurry than normal. I have been for years using an eye doctor at a place we will call company A. A small eye firm with two shops, great people, good doctor, and a wide selection of frames. Plus the glasses were a great price, far less expensive than the big companies. After your exam if you needed glasses you picked out two frames, they only charged you for one of the frames. Then you selected your lenses. One with all the features would be put in the frames you selected, the other frames would have just plain prescription lenses so you had an emergency back up pair. The two pairs of glasses often were half the price of one pair of the big local chains.

In November, Ron went to the big local chain eye doctors he has seen before because they treat his eye disease, which our small eye doctor did not, and they pushed him hard to get cataract surgery. Both of us have cataracts so we thought his had gotten worse than mine, even though his developed much later than mine. When he checked out, his visit was no charge because he had medicare. So we made an appointment for me, thinking it also would be no charge. But he needed a follow-up visit for a different test, scheduled a few weeks ago and they hammered him with charges. Cost us $188 dollars with his medicare paying also.

But being hopeful that my eye appointment would be covered under Medicare, we kept my appointment, which was this morning. I wish I had not. *** edit They charged me nearly $100 for my eye exam *** So they did some test on me they didn’t do for Ron, but every test they did for me was tests my other eye doctor did, but they did tests for Ron they did not do for me. But even before they gave me an eye exam they asked if I had watched the video they sent to me as a text. I said I did not. Turns out it was a video on cataract surgery choices. In the check in stuff, they gave us extra forms to fill out again before even examining me about if I were to have cataract surgery what choices I would want. At this point, they had not examined me to see if I had cataracts. Remember they had pushed Ron hard to have the surgery.

So when the tech finished, and unlike the other eye doctor I had the tech did all the tests for my eyesight portion where my first eye doctor did the tests themselves, she gave me a video to watch on different choices for cataract surgery. When the doctor came in, the first thing she asked was about the video, then launched into talking about the cataract surgery and how she wanted me to plan it for next year. She had not even looked into my eyes yet. She felt the left was bad and growing bad much faster than the right, so I should plan for next year and what options did I think I might want. I told her I would need more time to think on it. Later Ron told me the first option Medicare paid for but the other options ran thousands of dollars.

Then she quickly did her check in my eye quickly spewing numbers to her assistant operating the computer, saying scaring such and such at such and such in the left eye … but when she was done she went back to talking about the cataract. But she never talked to me about the scaring in my left eye! So then they had me sit in the waiting room for a person to go over glasses with me. I had brought a set of frames with me I liked and wanted any new lenses put in with the frames refitted to me.

What do you think they quoted me for just the lenses to be put in my own frames? Hold on to something … $920 for the basic / standard lens and $1160 for the preferred / premium lens. WTF. Remember at the other eye doctor I got two pairs, two new frames with one set of lenses being fully progressive with the photo gray sunglass thing with computer anti-glare for $650.

I did not buy the new lenses. I told them I needed to think on it, and I did not schedule a new appointment next year as they pushed me to do. I talk to Ron on the way home how I felt very pressured to have the cataract surgery and reminded him how they were pushing him to schedule his right way. They had sent me a video on it before they even examined me, and I felt the exam I got was less than our other doctor did.

So I am going to see if our other eye doctor is still seeing patients and if so we will both get exams, and as I already know I will need glasses I will get them there. But also I wanted everyone to know why I have not been doing much online, I am struggling more than normal to see everything. Best wishes, hugs, Scottie

Just so you know

Just so you know posting and replying to comments will be slow this morning. I have a doctor’s appointment, seeing my new pulmonologist this morning. Trying to figure out why I struggle with shortness of breath a lot of the time. It may take a while. Hugs.