New level of disgust with US healthcare

[trkdoc714]

My wife's Prestige surgery for C5/6 has been cancelled. The surgeon told her he wanted her in the Discover trial but there was a 20% chance he's perform a fusion even though he had promised her/ us the ADR. Just yesterday he told her he didn't want to use the Prestige (after promoting it in December). He went further by berating her for not trusting his judgement. He threw a barb at both of us (mostly aimed at me) for doing to much research, as we're not doctors, we're ignorant. He told her this over the telephone as we accompany each other to our appointments. Thankfully his assistant hinted at this the day before at her pre-op exam. We were able to discuss it and she had the mindset to not be intimidated ("It's my spine, doctor. I'll be the one deciding which procedure I have!") Unfortunately this leaves her back at square one and even more distrusting of the local medical community.

She contacted the Stenum representative and we've gotten the ball rolling for surgery in Germany. She's never travelled overseas (except our Jamaica honeymon) so she's apprehensive about having major surgery out of the country (odd, she was very comfortable with me doing it. Life insurance???).

She's covered by both of our individual group policies so once we work out the logistics, she'll have the surgery first. I don't think it's a good idea for us to both be recovering at the same time, especially with Sean (2 years old).

So the journey continues. I often wonder what I'm going to do with my time once she and I get our respective disc issues resolved. We're both spending so much time with doctors, insurance and information gathering I almost forget what we used to do with our time before all of this started. Then I look at Sean and I remember .

Bob