How to be happy having medical exams

A simple solution for making medical expenses less costly and much more pleasant, take your "medical vacation" in South Africa!  Come here for the excellent care, and while tests are being done and procedures scheduled, enjoy the great views and low cost foods and the fabulous hospitality that is so much a part of this culture.  REALLY!

We left Salone May 11th, were "stuck" two days in Accra Ghana, then missed all of our first week's appointments.  No worries!  When you explain to the Doctors here that you have less than two weeks to get everything done, they HELP rush you through the system!

And they take LOTS of time with you, talking about what is happening as we age, what changes to expect, ...think American Doctor visits from the 1960's or so, not rushed, not feeling like a number in their system.

I will try to post final costs if anyone out there wants to know, but to give you a hint of how much less it all costs, the lab fee for my PAPS was $35.00 US.  Our dental visits with x-rays and cleanings were under $200.00 for both of us.  Total!!  Not co-pay, those are absolute costs! Something has gone seriously wrong with the insurance and lawyers in America keeping the Doctors and their patients so far apart!  Nope, I do not believe the Government can fix it, I don't believe they have the know how to fix much of anything!

But back to my original premise, the best health care for the cheapest price is here in South Africa!  I know hardly anyone will make the visit, but we feel so fortunate to have been able to do it this year.  And we are leaving early enough to miss the World Cup crowd, but we have seen some of the mania!  So happy for South Africa in it all.  

connected again... it has been less than a year!

Connected with my Mac, not a possibility in Salone, we do not have the internet service provider who handles Macs, so I can only update this when we are out of Salone... we are in Accra Ghana as I type.

This week has been a roller coaster ride, emotionally.  I LOVE storms, thunder, lightening, lots and lots of rain, wind, all good!  The lightening strike that wiped out our freezer and electrical system in the house at Jui, not so good!  Monday morning we had a direct hit, and when we get back we will begin putting the system back together, and finding out if we can repair the freezer.  BUT Tuesday morning we split up the frozen stuff among some friends, and made the 2:00 ferry to Lungi, happy that we were on our way to South Africa.  We met a new friend at the ferry, more about that later, but the Kenya Airways flight went well, it was only AT the time of check in to SAA that we found out that "one blank page" in your passport to enter SA does not actually MEAN "ONE" it means FOUR!  The SAA staff would not let us board, so here we are, waiting in Accra for pages for Randy's passport, delayed in our plans and the medical appointments we have for this week are all a bust!

But in the midst of all of this I have had a couple of very encouraging e-mails, so the roller coaster is feeling like it is flying high right now!  My Mac is working, we have AC for the night, and running water for a bath... the next time I log in I pray we are in South Africa and I will try to convince Jesse to post photos!  Or check out our pages on facebook, we are always out there.