Healthcare Coverage At its Best

In our family, Brad and I don't exactly have the best reputation for seeking out professional medical care every time we get a sniffle. (We might argue that others are hypochondriacs, but I will not name names).

To say the very least, we don't frequent the doctor and neither do the kids. I just figure most viruses will go away and we've been blessed to avoid most major bacterial maladies.

(There are isolated incidents of Hand-Foot-Mouth disease, Nursemaids Elbow, and New Years Eve Dehydration of 2006 but that is about it.)

I personally don't know of Brad going to the dentist since we've been married, but I stopped bugging him about it around 2002. He loves to brag about his cavity-free existence, but I assert that is highly debatable based on lack of professional evidence.

Last February in the midst of yet another gigantic blizzard, we both dragged our truck-just-backed-over-us achey bodies to whom we thought was our family doctor. They couldn't find our records because we realized we'd NEVER BEEN. Working in our favor was the fact that we were so blatantly sick that they just handed us Z-Packs and pushed us out the door before we contaminated their entire office.

I want concerned relatives to feel like our kids are in Good, Caring, Medically Overprotective Hands, so I'm going to recount this true and recent event where I voluntarily drove myself to the eye doctor!

Sunday night, I realized that I couldn't see very well. Actually, others have astutely pointed it out to me since I can't read clocks, see the football scores on TV, or accurately read highway signs until I have passed the exit. (Don't worry, I only drive in familiar neighborhoods. Right.)

The straw that broke the camel's back was when Brad pointed out to that I was holding the laptop in the air approximately three inches from my face. It does defeat the purpose of a laptop to hold it up high when it is ten times the size and weight of a Blackberry. Not that I can see that screen either...

So I got new glasses! My old ones broke over two years ago and I had yet to replace them. No, the frame didn't bend a little or lose a screw (I am not above repairing them with duct tape) but the glass completely cracked in two. (Much like our fireplace.)

I've had several appointments in the past few years to get an eye exam and new glasses, but things always came up. The kids had a school program, I couldn't find a babysitter, or someone had a subarachnoid brain hemorrhage that left me out of pocket for awhile.

Come to find out, I'M PRACTICALLY BLIND! Before you freak out, it's just my left eye and my depth perception is not affected when I drive Popeye-style. Right.

The best part of glasses (unlike all other medical procedures) is that you get to pick out cute, trendy glasses at the end! When I got to "pick out" the walking boot for the broken foot, the choices ranged from obscenely ugly to shameful.

But glasses offer so many great color and style options that I got giddy. There was shopping involved in a medical procedure.

That is right up my alley.