Overhaulin'

Sorry to leave you all hanging, I hope you haven't spent the last two and a half weeks worrying that my mom has been lost somewhere between Chicago and Bangalore, she actually arrived safely, if not 45 minutes late. And I was stressing every minute. Anyway, she arrived with no problems despite the scenarios that my overactive imagination cooked up, no abduction by agitated soccer hooligans at Heathrow, no kidnapping and subsequent forced arranged marriage at the Bangalore International Airport by some deranged pervert. Nope, none of that, just a boring old trip halfway around the world. Bummer.

Not to worry though, as soon as Mom got here the fun began. Her purpose for this trip was really two-fold; first, to have some dental work, vision consultations and surgeries done and a distant second, to visit Eric and I. On her very first day in India, just four hours after her arrival, we had her first appointment at the dental clinic. She got to experience Bangalore traffic in the back of an autorickshaw which I think is an experience that she will not soon forget, in fact she might have recurring nightmares for the rest of her life. We spent the next week back and forth between home and the dental clinic (and to work for me when I could) having three root canals, one filling, one extraction, gum surgery for crown lengthening and two crowns placed. Whew, it was crazy. She completed her dental work on a Friday at around 6 PM and then next morning we were back at the hospital for her surgeries (during her dental work we had also fit in all of her pre-surgical tests, an ECG, chest X-ray and blood work as well as two meetings with the anesthesiologist). She was in surgery for 8 full hours having a mini face lift and brachioplasty (fancy doctor word for an arm-lift, why say arm-lift when you can sound way smarter by using a word with the suffix -plasty?). The surgeries went well and by Sunday afternoon we were back in an auto bumping our way back home (though bumping gently thanks to a very thoughtful auto driver). Two days later we were back out having a consultation with an eye surgeon to discuss LASIK and lens replacement. Since then we have been ordering new eyeglasses, getting cheap prescriptions and generally rebuilding my Mom. Mom is recovering well and has handled all of this like a pro but I am sure she is ready to get back home and have a vacation from her "vacation". We have had a little time to enjoy ourselves, we went out this week and spent a day shopping and went out to lunch but unfortunately the time has passed so quickly that there hasn't been time for much else. However, like I said her main reason for visiting was medical and dental, and I am very pleased that we managed to get that all taken care of in just the space of under three weeks.

Okay, the million dollar question. Why? For the readers of this blog from the US this question probably doesn't need to be addressed but for any international readers or any Americans who happen to live under a rock or have so much money that medical care isn't a financial worry, let me lay it out as briefly as I can. And please forgive me, this isn't the first time that I have talked about the prohibitive cost of medical care in the US before. Okay, let's begin with the dental treatment, I already mentioned the procedures that were done, and let me also mention that they were performed in probably one of the nicest and most expensive clinics in Bangalore. The total cost in dollars for all of the procedures that I mentioned was around $750, I think that a conservative estimate for the same treatment in the US would be $3000. Even though Mom's insurance would pay 50% of these treatments, she still saved $750. Okay, now for the surgeries, in the US the fact-lift would run anywhere from $3500-$6500 and the brachioplasty would be anywhere from $4000-6500. Mom paid $3000 here in Bangalore for both together and since insurance companies in the US won't cover these "cosmetic" procedures at all meaning that she would be responsible for footing the entire bill she saved at least another $4500. Her complete eye exam and consultation with the eye surgeon, $20. That would probably run you $200 in the States. For her eyeglasses she paid around $150 here in India for the best lenses that money can buy and saved around another $300. We stopped at the pharmacy yesterday and picked up some prescriptions that she and Dad take for high cholesterol, restless leg, acid reflux, etc. and saved another $350 on a 3 month supply of these meds (that is taking into account the 80% that insurance pays for the prescriptions, if they didn't have insurance covering this portion of their drugs they could save around $1650). Grand total saved by coming to India, over $6000 (this is a conservative estimate). Considering the cost of her ticket was around $1700 I think that it was a good decision for her to come here. Plus, she got the opportunity to visit with us and have an opportunity to travel abroad and see how the world is outside of the Quad Cities. It has been a crazy two and a half weeks but it has been great to have Mom around and I think that she is generally pleased at how it all turned out. In fact, she is making plans to continue the overhaul in January so I guess it wasn't so bad. Her visit is nearly up which means that it is only a few more days before we are homeward bound for a three week holiday in the US, and after the craziness of the last couple of weeks, we could sure use a holiday!