| Author | Message | ||
     Randy Roberson Grand Master Username: wascator Post Number: 543 Registered: 5-2009 |
minor I know but new to me. Amazing encounter with modern medical tech and capability. A few weeks ago I spent about a hour looking into several computer-controlled machines whilst the Right eye was being mapped, etc. This morning about 30 minutes of preparation, then about 10 minutes in the Inner Sanctum i.e. surgery. Walk out looking through a new lens. It will take a few days to get right but no pain and no motoring until next day). Doctor says he can do 10-12 patients in a good day. | ||
| Robert Noel Reddington Grand Master Username: bob_uk Post Number: 702 Registered: 5-2015 |
It is amazing what the medics can do. Hope everything goes according to plan. I recommend 24 hours of kipping on the sofa listening to your favourite music with lots of fluids. | ||
| Randy Roberson Grand Master Username: wascator Post Number: 546 Registered: 5-2009 |
Exactly what I am doing. Thanks for the Rx Dr. Bob! | ||
| David Gore Moderator Username: david_gore Post Number: 1794 Registered: 4-2003 |
Hi Randy, Congratulations on your successful sight restoration from someone who has experienced temporary loss of eyesight after corrective eye surgery as a child and teenager. Dr Fred Hollows [now deceased] was a legendary Australian surgeon who spent a long time in the less-developed countries of the world establishing manufacturing facilities for low-cost cornea implants and "roadside" safe techniques for restoring sight to people who otherwise would have remained blind for the rest of their life because they could not afford the cost of the procedure. Your experience is a direct consequence of the pioneering work of Dr Fred Hollows: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fred_Hollows If any of our members would like to support the work of the Fred Hollows Foundation in restoring sight for those less fortunate than ourselves with avoidable blindness, the following link may be of interest: http://www.hollows.org/au/home | ||
| ChristopherCarnley Unregistered guest Posted From: 5.80.18.25 |
It is a procedure called Phacoemulsion,phaco from the Ancient Greek for a lens (lentil). The cloudy lens is liquified by ultrasound, the contents sucked out and a folded acrylic lens slipped through a tiny incision. Usually of fixed focal length, they can also be variable. (Message approved by david_gore) | ||
| Robert Noel Reddington Grand Master Username: bob_uk Post Number: 705 Registered: 5-2015 |
I was going to sign off my advice with Dr Bob. But I thought better not. I can't imagine being blind it must be a right game stopper. I was disgusted and upset over recent treatment of a blind homeless person by the authorities. They moved him on. The authorities did nothing for him. If I had been that copper I would have arrested him and put him in a warm cell and fed him. Then get social services out of bed. | ||
| Jan Forrest Grand Master Username: got_one Post Number: 872 Registered: 1-2008 |
My BIL had both eyes done earlier this year and it's changed his outlook more than anyone could have imagined. For the first 67 years of his life he was almost completely colour blind with only blues and greens vaguely registering on his cones. After the surgery he can see the full rainbow and has to wear shades virtually all the time due to the world being a much brighter place now. How cool is that? | ||
| Brian Vogel Grand Master Username: guyslp Post Number: 1741 Registered: 6-2009 |
Bob, I cannot imagine being blind, either, and I doubt that most people can imagine becoming blind (or deaf, or losing any sense they've had their whole lives). I can say, though, given that one of the primary things I do is working with people who are legally blind, at a minimum, through totally blind, most of whom became blind rather than being born with visual impairment that it really need not be a "right game stopper." I think it sometimes is for a while, particularly when someone is mourning that loss, but life need not stop afterward. One of my current clients is a young gentleman who's legally blind (and has been since birth) who is an excellent automotive mechanic who's now in training to be an aircraft mechanic. (I know, virtually everyone who hears this including myself initially responds with, "What?!!," but having worked with him for a while now it's absolutely not a ludicrous proposition in any way). I have two others who are older than I am (early 50s), have recently become blind, and are enrolled as graduate students. Having some time in at the Virginia School for the Deaf and the Blind I can definitely say that if I were faced with the choice of having to lose a sense I'd take losing sight before losing hearing by a very wide margin. People have no idea how isolating it is to not be able to hear. It's a far bigger game changer than being blind (though neither is trivial and I don't mean to imply that either is). Brian | ||
| richard george yeaman Grand Master Username: richyrich Post Number: 395 Registered: 4-2012 |
My wife of 50 years was blinded and maimed when an IRA terrorist bomb was planted outside the building she was working in on the 15th of march 1982 she was 38 years old with four children the youngest one was 9 years old. I think that being blind is the worst single sense that anyone can lose. Richard. | ||
| Randy Roberson Grand Master Username: wascator Post Number: 552 Registered: 5-2009 |
I agree Richard: sight would be the worst sense to lose. Vision is so useful and the eye is such a miraculous sense it fills me with wonder to consider how it works and the Creator. Essentially the eye senses radiation of certain wavelengths which is reflected from objects much like radar. Your wife's loss is tragic: I am sorry. | ||
| Robert Noel Reddington Grand Master Username: bob_uk Post Number: 719 Registered: 5-2015 |
Richard. I wish your wife and you the very best. | ||
| Geoff Wootton Grand Master Username: dounraey Post Number: 1018 Registered: 5-2012 |
Richard I just wanted to acknowledge what you have just told us. The enormity of what befell your wife and your family is just too great for mere words. I suspect Randy and Bob are right to keep it simple. I admire your wife's and your courage. Geoff | ||
| David Gore Moderator Username: david_gore Post Number: 1800 Registered: 4-2003 |
Richard, Words cannot express the horror and consequences of the situation your wife experienced as an innocent victim and our personal reactions to the injury involved. I am sure all members of our Forum no matter where they live in the world empathise with you both and recognise your wife's achievements in overcoming the restrictions placed on her for the rest of her life. | ||
| ChristopherCarnley Unregistered guest Posted From: 86.176.214.96 |
Amen to that,truly. The Jehovah's Witnesses are certain that the eye had to have been "created" by an all powerful "Creator",and have written a book with pictures and diagrams possibly a graph or two, to convince the unwary. So when I can summon the patience I say "Of course, two of them "Nature" and the evolution of nature". They seem to feel sorry for me. (Message approved by david_gore) | ||
| Jan Forrest Grand Master Username: got_one Post Number: 877 Registered: 1-2008 |
Sometimes I'm tempted to remind these Witness idiots as to how their cult came about. The female founder was a follower of one of the crazier American cults of the 19th century. The leader of this one predicted the day of the apocalypse/rapture much as many have both before and since. As in the movie, Poltergeist, he and his followers descended into caves and hid out to avoid the immolation of the rest of humanity. IIRC nothing happened and everyone was royally pissed off at having sold all their worldly possessions for no good reason. She, and a few others, chose to react by founding their own sects with similarly lunatic versions of the Biblical scriptures. Funny how things turn out, innit? | ||
| Randy Roberson Grand Master Username: wascator Post Number: 553 Registered: 5-2009 |
You have JWs in Australia? I saw some in London. There are some here in north LA but even though this is the Bible Belt they are definately not mainstream. I believe the eye (and everything else for that matter) was created by God; everything that exhibits a a high degree of order was made that way (ordered) by someone. Does that get me tossed from the club? I was forced off a Mercedes forum once for such a statement. | ||
| Geoff Wootton Grand Master Username: dounraey Post Number: 1019 Registered: 5-2012 |
Hi Randy Omar's tee-shirt will be no good for you then. http://au.rrforums.net/forum/messages/30/17464.html?1448051213 Geoff | ||
| Brian Vogel Grand Master Username: guyslp Post Number: 1744 Registered: 6-2009 |
Randy, If you were tossed from a forum for having made such a statement once, you have every right to feel that this was an unjust decision. That being said, and I am not saying or implying that you did this, my experience is that those who get tossed from most forums for expressing their religious beliefs get tossed because this is virtually all they express, and as non sequitur to anything that preceded or follows said expressions. I have nothing against religion and even devoutly religious individuals. I do have a lot against "God Bots" who cannot stop proselytizing. I feel very grateful that this has never happened on any RR/Bentley forum in which I've ever participated, past or present. Brian | ||
| Geoff Wootton Grand Master Username: dounraey Post Number: 1020 Registered: 5-2012 |
I was just assuming that Randy's Mercedes forum was run from the UK or Germany. They're not too big on religion over there. God knows what they'll do when the Islamics take over. | ||
| Brian Vogel Grand Master Username: guyslp Post Number: 1745 Registered: 6-2009 |
Geoff, If what you say is true (with regard to the specific home countries of a forum, not in general), I guess we in the U.S. are more tolerant of religious expression than is common in some other western democracies. I also think we often have a lot of confusion about what the Constitutional right to free speech actually entails, since that document is an agreement between the government and the governed. I see people screaming Censorship!! in many instances such as when what virtually anyone would recognize as an internet troll is banned from a forum, comments board, etc. These same people don't seem to realize that all of these communication media are owned by entities other than the government, and that we are there "at their pleasure." This forum is an example of that. As such, those who are responsible for a forum are perfectly within their rights to manage it as they see fit and shut down speech, particularly off-topic and hostile speech, that detracts from the actual purpose of the venue. These venues are someone's metaphorical "living room" and no one is obligated to allow anyone to say or do anything that they please in their living room. Brian P.S. Thank heaven for the Idler Chatter forum, as this would be completely off-topic anywhere else on this forum. P.P.S. All Hail Thread Drift!! | ||
| Randy Roberson Grand Master Username: wascator Post Number: 554 Registered: 5-2009 |
I kinda liked it even though I don't give much credence to evolution as a creative force. I thought it was kinda tongue-in-cheek and it does speak to the development over millennia which one moment in time resulted in the Rolls/Royce automobile. We discuss the Rolls-Royce and it does represent a very high degree of order: minerals, ores, which man learned to refine and work with over millennia results in many different kinds of iron, steel, copper, aluminum, et al and volumes could be written about the origin and development of each one. All were necessary to build a Rolls-Royce, which is ordered from so many different materials. The very shape of it represent many lifetimes of history: why and how wood, leather, Mason's black or Seychelles blue? How many volumes could be written about each? As the Rolls-Royce was not the product of accident and chance, but of creative effort ordering the various materials into the whole; so life represents order. The second law states that the universe naturally tends to move toward disorder and order does not naturally increase, so a Rolls-Royce will eventually return to rust and dust if left alone( as so many are, unfortunately) but rust and dust will never become a Rolls-Royce by themselves; basically it takes the intervention of a creator. I understand that I have trouble understanding my Creator and just have to accept my limitations. That's all. | ||
| Vladimir Ivanovich Kirillov Grand Master Username: soviet Post Number: 329 Registered: 2-2013 |
Yes definitely Randy you have to go, only Atheists in the forum now that we have a Soviet Grand Master but you may be able to redeem yourself with a vegetable colander. I saw on the internet the other day a young lady in some northern US State had taken the traffic authorities to court and won the right to wear a vegetable colander on her head in her drivers licence photo. The grounds of the case were that it was discriminatory not to let her wear the vegetable colander on her head in the photo because she was member of the Flying Gigantic Spagetti Monster Church or something like that. She did look rather odd with the Colander and I got a giggle out of it wondering what will be the result when your Highway Patrol demands to see her drivers licence. A drug search and test would be the first thing I imagine preceded by hilarious laughter. I can't imagine any cop keeping a straight face on that one. If Stalin could not get rid of religion out of the Soviet Union then I think trying to get rid of it anywhere is a time waster. Each to their own as long as I don't have to dress my wife up like Walt Disneys character the Blob and grown a beard and knell to any God then I don't give a tinkers cuss what people believe in. | ||
| Geoff Wootton Grand Master Username: dounraey Post Number: 1021 Registered: 5-2012 |
Hi Brian I was just being lighthearted and glib. Europe is just as tolerant of different religions as the US. Some would say too tolerant for religions that challenge the state viz sharia law. Randy - There are plenty of examples of complex structures being created in nature - snowflakes, mineral crystals etc. Also randomly changed lifeforms occur all the time. Scientists battle each year to find vaccines for the latest incarnation of the flu virus. Gosh, I'm glad we are on idler chatter. Geoff | ||
| Geoff Wootton Grand Master Username: dounraey Post Number: 1022 Registered: 5-2012 |
  | ||
| Jan Forrest Grand Master Username: got_one Post Number: 879 Registered: 1-2008 |
You would never get away with that crap in the UK. Colander on your head? Step this way, please and put this odd jacket on. The one with closed sleeves and leather strap fasteners at the back. Burkha wearing Muslims have tried that and were told, in no uncertain terms, that eyes aren't a visual method of facial identification. It's even harder when getting a passport photo approved. No smiling, not too big and not too small, face in the centre of the picture and - Sikhs excepted - NO headgear! The really stupid point about passports is that they all last for 10 years and even a new born baby has to have one to travel outside the country. How will the child and the photo compare when the child is 10? My passport has 18 months to run and I couldn't pick myself out of a crowd if I had to rely on the photo inside it for identification! | ||
| Randy Roberson Grand Master Username: wascator Post Number: 555 Registered: 5-2009 |
Yep, the Colander Lady is hilarious. I got the impression she is making fun of the politically correct, don't-offend-anyone crowd that are running wild in the U.S. Now. Some of these folks find that any gimmick will not be questioned by anyone who is otherwise in authority do it gives them power of a sort. Really strange but the human is strange and complex! | ||
| Randy Roberson Grand Master Username: wascator Post Number: 556 Registered: 5-2009 |
Geoff: true but snowflakes etc happen according to natural laws and all involve two things: increases in order and energy. Just saying... |
