Arthur's surgical procedure of his retinal detachment/Carlos Pueblo

 Arthur's surgical procedure of his retinal detachment/Carlos Pueblo

For the last four days, we have been very busy to manage Arthur's surgical procedure of his retinal detachment. I have invited him to write about his ordeal on this blog and now I like to describe the same from my part as his parent. What I like to describe about are the help as parents in this case, the insurance prospects, and dealing with the medical field issues.

Arthur has been like a normal kid after his six years of age without any severe medical attention. About three years ago at his age 33, he had had his right eye cataract procedure, and his left eye procedure at age 35. Both procedures were successful without incident even though he was very young for such procedure. After 14 months from the later procedure, he has discovered that he has a retinal detachment on his left eye. We think that may be due to the result of a genetic default because that my left eye also had a detachment right after my left eye cataract procedure. I had to have another surgeon to  repeat the procedure. My eyes are doing great after the three procedures and I do have a detachment on the left eye. We keep him at home in order to take care for him and I know how much the medical attention will cost me. Luckily he works with a company which provides the health insurance for the employees.

He attempted to see his cataract procedure surgeon to take a look yet he was booked for the entire week. Then the provider's firm sent him to another physician to take a look. The new physician couldn't tell the problem yet referred to my eye surgeon, the one who came to rescue me last time. He couldn't identify Arthur's detachment either yet asked him to come back in three weeks. On the second week, Arthur's condition was getting worse and he managed to get the same specialist's attention to get an emergency appointment. After careful examination, he referred Arthur to his fellow retina specialist near the Texas Medical Center for an emergency surgery on the next day. He is lucky that he gets this eyes surgeon on Saturday and entered the Methodist Hospital on that day as an emergency case and got the procedure done all within three days.

I can't care too much about insurance net works or not. The final surgeon's office and the hospital both take him as a patient and I know that I have to prepare his part of the payment. I am alright with such payment. The money pain is like a breeze that his blindness in the future. Now, I am more appreciated of the current health insurance system in the U.S. I can tell the difference if this urgent need of medical attention occurred in Canada or in the United Kingdom, etc. I wonder if Arthur and we as his parents can get a peace of mind. He might not get the quick attention.