GoFundMe tempting solution to uncovered medical expenses

I recently went blind in my right eye and I’m blaming Joe Biden and the IRS.

OK, I’m not really blind, folks — it just seems like it as I write this column as I squint at the screen. Expect that there will be typos.

So I was sitting at this same desk, frantically working on my taxes on April 18 when a tiny fly began flitting around between me and my 1040. No amount of hand waving was doing any good and I soon realized that it must be one of those vision floaters that many old folks tell you about.

In addition to the floaters it appeared I just wasn’t able to read on page or screen as well as I had been previously. That may have occurred over a few months. Those floaters were sudden, however.

I had known working on taxes could make you cross-eyed, but this was a new experience. At one point I imagined it looked like it was focusing up as Saturn on extreme axis, with its rings sharply angled instead of horizontal.

Then a few nights later as I flipped on the light to enter the white-tiled kitchen a small spider scampered across the floor and I instinctively stomped his guts out. Yet I could find no guts on the tile or my shoe. No trace of the arachnid at all — except possibly in my own eye.

I finally secured a doctor’s appointment with the old boy that did my cataract surgery in Lubbock. Unfortunately, a few days later they called me back to say my insurance was no good with them. I found an ophthalmologist in New Mexico who was in network but booked solid for the next couple of months. His popularity no doubt due in no small part by the same shortage of insurance plans available to New Mexicans this year.

I opted to keep my appointment in Lubbock and private pay. I wanted to make sure I really didn’t go blind.

After staff breezed me through the tests and the dilation of my eyes I was left in a dark exam room for approximately an hour. Text messages were arriving on my phone but I really couldn’t read them. I finally made out a request from a coworker to proofread a document — not a chance.

I could tell from the 4:30 klatch of clinic employees outside my door that I was the final patient of the day in a place that had been packed when I arrived.

Finally the doctor arrived and looked deep into my eyes. He said yes, “I see you have several floaters but the real problem is the scar tissue developing behind the implanted lens on that right eye.” He said the way it was he couldn’t correct my vision enough to pass the driver’s test.

I thought of all the senior citizen drivers I’d cussed over the years because they had obviously failed the vision screen on their driving test. I began to weep silently or was it the eye drops?

“No problem,” he said. “We can laser that right off and get your vision back like it was after the cataract surgery.”

I explained there was a problem with the insurance. “Well it’s not that expensive and I’d be happy to do it for private pay.” With that he left, possibly for a 5:30 tee time while I was eventually herded into a tiny surgery scheduler’s cubicle. When I explained the insurance problems she quickly picked up the phone and talked to a higher up and when she replaced the receiver she said it would have to be private pay and laid the number on me.

I told her obviously the good doctor’s idea of “not very expensive” and mine were in different time zones. I left without scheduling to come up with a plan. Finally as my dilated vision cleared I came up with one. The same plan everyone these days resorts to when met with uncovered medical expenses — start a GoFundMe page.

No, I’ve already cussed those folks over and over so I guess I won’t do that, but it is tempting.

Karl Terry writes for Clovis Media Inc. Contact him at:

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