Glad that she is doing better. It is really scary when little ones become ill.

I have shasta daisies, black-eyed susans, peonies, and day lillies planted in the front, as well as Rose of Sharon bushes, so it is really pretty in the summer.

Thanks ninelives. Picture of the front of my house today. The front yard looks like a hay field as our lawn mower broke when my husband mowed the grass this week. Also, we live out in the country on a hill and the weather is colder than in the city, so our trees are not in full bud and bloom yet. Our seasons are a little later than other places.

I had the day off today. Got a Mother's Day card from my oldest son. It is overcast and dreary, but no rain. Lots of fragrant flowers blooming around my house. Lilacs, vibernum bushes, irises, and tulips. I need to do some weeding, LOL.

Metallica - Enter Sandman

Metallica - Master of Puppets RRHOF Version

My sons came home for the weekend. But I am doing mountains of laundry. I may go to a movie with them today. Probably Wolverine, although I don't really care for this type of movie.

I am happy to be back after a week off from this site. I have been in NYC. Went to see Mamma Mia on Broadway and went to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Annex. Thought I saw Robert Plant walking on Broadway, LOL. I did a double-take and caught his eye and he gave me a look like, "shhh, don't tell anyone, but you know who I am". Anyone know if he was in NYC last weekend? Also, I helped a patient today who had M.S. and hadn't had her eyes checked for years because she was in a wheel chair and nobody would check her in her chair. I check people in wheel chairs all the time and I don't know why no other doctors would take her as a patient. She was fairly easy to examine. She was so grateful and was weeping because I could help her. I hope that Dzldoc is doing OK. I forgot that the chemo treatments were to start this week. You miss alot when you are gone from here for a week.

Here is a nice bio with some of his poetry: Primo Levi

Just in case anyone is interested: Fuse is replaying the RRHOF Induction Ceremony and they just finished with Bobby Womack. I think that Jimmy and Jeff are next up after Run DMC. If you listen closely, just before the commercials at the end when Metallica are on stage and before the All-Star Jam at the end, Jimmy makes a few comments about soloing during the jam. I think he says : "Forget the soloing, I just hope that I get the F*#@ing sequence right." (I watched it yesterday, btw and didn't catch exactly what he said. Glad to have the opportunity to see it again.) Don't be disappointed because they did edit the show quite a bit.

Laughing my head off!

Eric Clapton and Steve Winwood on June 15, Columbus, Ohio. Metallica on September 15, Cincinnati, Ohio. Maybe Metallica on October 15, Cleveland, Ohio. Fleetwood Mac is playing on Friday April 14th in Columbus. Would like to go but I will be in Fort Lauderdale that weekend. Too bad.

I am listening to Enter Sandman on replay of the RRHOF Induction on TiVo. I have played it over and over about 10 times now. My husband is giving me a funny look, thinks that I am loosing it? LOL He doesn't share my love of Rock and Roll. He is not going to the Metallica concert with me and the boys on September 15th. He will be the looser then. He doesn't know what he will be missing.

It was 71 degrees F when I came home from work tonight at 8 PM. A thunderstorm was brewing but not much has developed yet. They are predicting highs in the 40's tomorrow with rain. I am hoping for nice weather in Cleveland this weekend for Jimmy's visit. We are in the early stages of Spring in Ohio. The trees and flowers are in the early stages of bloom. Cleveland is farther north than Columbus and it is colder there and maybe not as spring-like this early in April. It would be great to have beautiful weather for the incuction ceremony. I think that I am expecting too much. Ohio's weather is very changeable.

When my sons were in grade school, we were coming home from the Easter Vigil Mass on Saturday night (the night before Easter). A rabbit ran out in front of our car and we hit it. It limped off of the road and disappeared in the brush. The boys were so upset and kept saying "Dad killed the Easter Bunny". They were crying and kept saying it over and over. The next morning when they saw thier Easter baskets, they were relieved that the Easter Bunny was only injured and still made it to our house with his goodies. Thank goodness the rabbit did not die on the highway and the kids didn't have to see it laying on the road. They did see a rabbit in our yard later in the day and was sure that the Easter Bunny was doing fine.

Hi Fortuna, We visited the Lasik center today and I did get the opportunity to see a patient get an enhancement, or touch up on a previous surgery. The patient's previous flap was pried loose and lifted and the cornea was then treated with the laser and then the flap was re-positioned. This patient had a very small degree of nearsightedness and it only required a pulse of the laser for three seconds. It was very easy for the surgeon and the patient. My surgeon friend said that a previous flap can be lifted up at any point in time, there usually is no problem. Only in rare cases does a new flap have to be cut. He said that the main risk of having an enhancement is being over-corrected and becoming farsighted afterward. You should check into having the enhancement as it was such a simple procedure. I hope that this information has been helpful to you.

I am happy because my sons are home from college for spring break. But I have been doing laundry non-stop since yesterday afternoon. Our family went to Mass tonight and then went to a Mexican restaurant for a great dinner. Just lounging around now and watching basketball games with them.

I didn't even bother to house clean this week. It would be a waste of time. The boys are coming home tomorrow for spring break and I will have tons of laundry to do all weekend. The house will be in shambles. But hey, it's worth it to have them home for the week. I will clean when they go back to college. Edited to say: Happy Vernal Equinox to you Mandy. Take it easy and enjoy the weekend. We are having cold weather again. Hope that you will have spring-like weather for your lazy spring break!

That is so cute! Did the jukebox play any Led Zeppelin songs? Perhaps Dancing Days?

We have a central vacuum system in our house (and my office). It is fantastic. The vacuum and the canister is outside in our garage and we have several outlets on each floor of our house. We use just a hose and the vacuumer and all the dirt goes outside in the garage. None of the dirt stays in the house. It cost about $1500 and we will never have to buy a vacuum cleaner again. I was going through at least one a year at my office before we got the central vac system.

Hi Fortuna, You can have a "touch-up" on your Lasik. The surgeon lifts the original flap and then just "zaps" the cornea again. I am not sure the time limit on just lifting the flap as I know that it can be done within a year of the original surgery. A new flap may have to be cut if it has been a long time since the initial cut. They now have a laser which can do the cutting which is more precise than the microkeratome, so I would think that it would be preferred when re-cutting a flap. It depends on how thin your cornea is currently. If it is very thin, then a touch-up cannot be done as it would result in a possible perforation of the eye, which is BAD. If it is not too thin, then a touch-up can be done. Some surgeons were guarenteeing lifetime touch ups at no charge several years ago, so check with your original surgeon. I will ask my surgeon friend when I visit him at the end of the month and get more info then. Hope this info helps.

These Eyes - Guess Who

Hi ~tangerine~! Alot of my patients have had lasik. Only a few have had problems. Most went to my surgeon friend to have it done. Only one who went to him had problems. Her corneas were too thin after the surgery and she had unstable vision afterward. Another patient had severe dry eyes afterward and had to keep a bottle of eyedrops in her hand at all times to keep her eyes moist. She eventually got better after a year or so. Another patient who had her surgery at one of those cheapy lasik centers had a big problem. The abalation was not centered over her pupil (she must have moved her eye during the procedure) and she had uncorrectable poor vision due to this. The remedy to this problem is for the surgeon to use the LADAR eye tracking system, which of course, costs more. The other thing to consider is that if you are over 40, you are still going to need reading glasses as the lasik does not correct presbyopia, which is the natural loss of near vision due to aging that is unpreventable. So you will still need reading glasses to see at near. Also, most people tend to get a little nearsighted again with time, and you may need part-time distance glasses again at some time. Even if you are perfectly corrected with the lasik the day of your surgery, you probably will be nearsighted again to a small degree ten years later. The other risks, that I have never seen happen in any of my patients, is infection, or the flap of cornea could get dislodged and lost. These could result in permanent loss of vision. This is extremely rare. 99% of my patients who have had lasik are extremely happy with the results and have had no problems. Edited to say: You probably won't be able to wear contacts successfully after lasik as the contacts won't fit the flattened corneas anymore. So you give up the possibility to ever wear contacts again (in most cases) if you need a visual correction down the road.

My oldest son and I are going to visit a Lasik surgeon's office in two weeks when he will be on spring break from college. He is applying to Optometry school and one of the requirements for the application is that he visit several offices. He has been coming to my office ever since he was a baby so I think that he has had more knowledge of the profession than most applicants. But I want him to see a different aspect of the career. I have a friend who is an OD and a MD who is one of the best lasik surgeons in the country who we are going to visit. The last time I was at his office he tried to talk me into having the procedure and I almost did it. My son would be a good candidate, but I think that I would advise him to wait until he is done with school before having it done. Lasik is very safe with good results in most cases.