Cataracts

Cancer related 042409

The last time I saw the eye doctor, we had a discussion about the cataracts developing in each eye, left more than right. Perhaps in another year, he says, they’ll be “bad enough” for Medicare to pay for removing them. You could do it now, but Medicare wouldn’t pay for it.
It seems strange to me to be planning on cataract surgery in a year or so, when every three months the tumor markers or the MRI could show new metastases. But then again, another person might have a heart attack right after cataract surgery. Who’s to know?
My mother had cataract surgery on both eyes even with an as-of-yet undiagnosed mass in her lungs—and Medicare paid. I was surprised then, and I’m still surprised, although pleased, because seeing clearly certainly added to the quality of her last months. So why won’t Medicare pay for hearing aids? I’d rather have Medicare refuse to pay for an experimental treatment in exchange for paying for hearing aids. But I suppose I’m in the minority here. And I haven’t really faced that decision yet, except in the mental “what ifs?”
Still, I lead an amazingly normal life at the moment, with the exception of this incredibly heightened sense of life. Life being experienced. Life as I have experienced it. But not much about life as I will experience it. Some of that, of course, is because of my age. I don’t have an infinite amount of time ahead of me as children think they do—or 50 years ahead as 20-somethings and 30-somethings think. My future, realistically, is unlikely to be more than a decade, at the very best. So that does have a way, as Mark Twain said, of concentrating the mind.