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The Chief then asked us to go into the office of the Counselor... another dame for whom counseling was the euphemism for cash-talk.
She asked my son:
"Cash or Insurance?"
And when my son replied that I was covered by the insurance that his American employers cheerfully dole out, everything fell in place.
And the Counselor suggested why not go in for the best Package...it just costs Rs 40,000.
And since my son had done his rigorous homework on the net, he asked her details like whether it is phaco, and if the IOL (intra-ocular lens) that would be inserted @40,000 per eye would be ultraviolet-protected and such jargon which meant nothing to me.
I couldn't care less...
The dame said yes it would be phaco and yes the IOL would be blue-filtered and took down the insurer's name, code and what not and asked us to reappear on Monday @ 9 AM after putting three or four drops in the eye meanwhile...and doled us a printout of the precautions and postcautions that I spelled out in all of 15 earlier posts.
My son signed the forms of consent...I didn't have to sign any...recall that I was supposed to be blind and perhaps semi-literate...
And we went home and I was nonchalant till the night before Monday when my son showed me a video of the gruesome phaco-procedure on his Smart HDTV in all its gory detail:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bhmjz0p8XQA
I couldn't sleep that night...
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So I was vacillating whether to go under the surgeon's scalpel, fearing the trauma...I never had the experience earlier.
The clincher was the report by my son that it was his mom's wish.
And that had to be respected...she was such an angel.
So I gave him the go-ahead and my D-i-L too was glad.
Then on my son went into action mode...online, offline, topline, bottomline...when, where, and how. He revels in these things.
After prolonged research he decided that the new and posh-looking Eye Care Center would be the best...it is just 2 km from our place and the Chief there had performed about a lakh of cataract operations in his career...my son had read his profile online.
It has always been my policy that, once I entrust a job to someone, I never interfere with their decisions and I tag along like a spectator quark...or the shepherded lamb.
So we walked into the spick-and-span building and were received cordially by everyone from the front office folks to the assisting dames.
Once my son announced that he was there to get his dad's cataracts removed, they took the tiny registration fees of Rs 100 maybe...the ground bait.
I was then walked into several chambers with gleaming equipment and the dames manning them asked me to push my head into what looked like guillotine slots and focused their instruments into my eyes one after the other and clicked several times...A-Scan, B-Scan and whatever. And put drops into my eyes and asked me to read stuff that I could hardly see.
And the entire file was then forwarded to the Chief who, after I put my head into his guillotine, announced that the right eye needs immediate surgery while the left could wait a couple of months. He was fiftyish and soft-spoken and didn't insult me like the others...like asking me if I can read English alphabet or would prefer Telugu...
She asked my son:
"Cash or Insurance?"
And when my son replied that I was covered by the insurance that his American employers cheerfully dole out, everything fell in place.
And the Counselor suggested why not go in for the best Package...it just costs Rs 40,000.
And since my son had done his rigorous homework on the net, he asked her details like whether it is phaco, and if the IOL (intra-ocular lens) that would be inserted @40,000 per eye would be ultraviolet-protected and such jargon which meant nothing to me.
I couldn't care less...
The dame said yes it would be phaco and yes the IOL would be blue-filtered and took down the insurer's name, code and what not and asked us to reappear on Monday @ 9 AM after putting three or four drops in the eye meanwhile...and doled us a printout of the precautions and postcautions that I spelled out in all of 15 earlier posts.
My son signed the forms of consent...I didn't have to sign any...recall that I was supposed to be blind and perhaps semi-literate...
And we went home and I was nonchalant till the night before Monday when my son showed me a video of the gruesome phaco-procedure on his Smart HDTV in all its gory detail:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bhmjz0p8XQA
I couldn't sleep that night...
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