Home Improvements (part 2)

brooke and i worked in the yard some today. we cleaned out the old flower beds and put some blue/purple perinnials down. hope they'll bloom soon. we bought some mulch to help make everything "pop"! i also cut down 2 dead azalea bushes in our back yard. and, we hung some geraniums up on the front porch.

we hope to paint the master bathroom this weekend. be looking for pics...

Planting the flowers - see how bland it looked!

Freaky Eye Friday

DISCLAIMER: picture of an eye below....this one's not bad, though.

i saw a patient today who came in as an emergency.  he noticed at 6:00 am this morning that he couldn't see the top part of his vision in his left eye.  it happened very suddenly and hasn't gotten better.

we dilated his pupils and looked inside.  i saw something that looks kinda like this picture:

this is an example of a Branch Retinal Artery Occlusion (BRAO).  let me help you get oriented to the anatomy of the internal eye.

the big yellow circle is the part of the optic nerve that i can see in your eyes.  it takes all the information from the eye to the brain.  the red crooked lines are blood vessels that take blood to and from the retina (the orange background....you didn't know the inside of your eye was orange, did you?).  

in the picture, the 2 arrows that point to the shiny particle in the blood vessel are showing a "plaque" that is blocking the blood from flowing to the retina.  since the blood can't reach the retina, it looks pale in that area.  the other 2 arrows help you to see how far that reaches.

when i see this condition in practice, it is a wake-up call for the patient.  anyone who has a BRAO is at serious risk for having a heart attack or stroke.  those are essentially the same things as a BRAO, but they happen in the heart or the brain instead of the eye.  my patient today had already undergone a 6-bypass surgery less than one year ago.  most likely, this "plaque" came from some blockage that used to be blocking his heart arteries.  he's going to be seeing his heart doctor soon to make sure he's not at an immediate risk for another heart attack or a stroke.

the prognosis or outlook for this condition is usually not great.  it depends on how long the area is without blood.  we weren't able to help it move downstream any today in the office.  we recommended increasing his aspirin dosage to help thin the blood and hopefully help this plaque to dislodge.

it's humbling to think that we may have had a role in saving this guy's life because of checking his eyes....

Many apologies....

i understand that many people were grossed out/shocked to see the picture from last friday's post.  so i'll do my best to warn you in the future that an eyeball picture is on the way.

tonight, i'm getting to watch my nephew Cade pitch in his baseball game.  i'm here to tell you:  this dude is gonna be a great athlete soon.  he's already almost able to beat me at "around the world".  here's a picture of him at the Valentine's Banquet this year.  Brooke was teaching him to be "gangsta".  

Weekend wrapup

our weekend was pretty busy. brooke had to work Saturday and Sunday, so she's worn out from that. Saturday night, we had a dinner party with brooke's coworkers...kind of a going away party for 2 graduating pharmacists, Ben and Amy Boyd. we had a good time there.

sunday, i got to preach that morning and that night. i was really only planning on preaching once, though. our regular preacher (Mel Futrell) was out of town on a gospel meeting, so i was ready to preach that morning at our congregation. well, that morning while we were getting ready, i got a call from the preacher at Montevallo, and he needed me to preach that night. so, i preached the same sermon that morning and that night, just two different audiences.

i got to play golf today. it was only the 2nd time i've gone since it got warm again. i was quickly reminded at how bad i am at golf, and the frustrations drug on for 18 painful holes. i think that was enough to keep me off the course for some time. :)

brooke has a few more weeks of school before she'll be off for the summer! keep her in your prayers!

Freaky Eye Friday

let me assure you that every friday won't have a gross eye picture on it, but some might.  as you probably know, i'm an optometrist.  i fix eyes 5 days a week.  i thought i'd share a few interesting common cases that i see regularly.

the picture shown is an example of a corneal foreign body.  most people don't realize that there is a clear layer of tissue that sits like a dome over the colored part of our eyes.  that clear dome is called the "cornea".  it is the most innervated part of our entire body (i.e. there are more nerves per square millimeter than any other tissue in our body).  translation:  when we injure the cornea, it HURTS!!!  it seems like 2-3 times a week, a patient will come in complaining of a red, sensitive eye.  i'll ask if they remember getting anything in their eyes, and more often than not, they'll tell me they have been grinding or hammering something.  when i look with the microscope, i'll usually find one of these.  the metal has flown off the nail/hammer/grinding tool and embedded in the cornea.  if the metal remains in the eye for greater than 24 hours, a "rust ring" can develop.  the cornea is very well hydrated, and as we all remember from our physical science classes in middle school:  metal + water = rust.  i'll spend the next 5-10 minutes digging metal and rust from the patient's anesthetized cornea.  i can't describe to you how nervous i was when i had to remove my first metallic foreign body.  but it's a piece of cake now.

every time i have a patient like this, i always think back to what Jesus said in Matthew 7:1-5.  in my Bible, i labeled this section as "spiritual foreign body removal".  the only way i can successfully take a piece of metal from a patient's eye is if my eyes are working properly.  in the same manner, Jesus said that the only way we can properly judge others is if we have removed that sin from our own lives.  otherwise, we'd be judging hypocritically.  i can't seek to correct someone caught in lying if i am myself entangled in lying.  however, if i'm living as God directs and have "put away lying" (Ephesians 4:25), then i am commanded to help correct the erring brother.

maybe you have found instances in your job where something you do reminds you of Scripture.  i'd love to hear your story.

Home Improvements 2

here are a few more pictures to really accent how different the paint looks in the kitchen now...

Kitchen - after

Kitchen - before

Home improvements...

Brooke and I have been working on fixing all the problems that our "money pit" has created for us.  here are some pictures to show off our work:

Kitchen - Before

Kitchen - After

Mailbox - Before

Mailbox - After

New Light Fixture in Bathroom

My favorite current TV show....

i feel compelled to encourage my ABC network fans to do whatever it takes to try out "The Office" on thursday nights on NBC.  i know that "Lost" is a big hit, along with "Grey's Anatomy", but let's face it: those are just soap operas that run at night.  i realized that about "ER" a while back, and it's never been the same since.  

so to my friends, family, and colleagues across the aisle, i implore you to check out some episodes of "The Office" on NBC's website.  once you've gotten the lay of the land, visit www.theofficequotes.com for some zingers of episodes gone by.  you can select any episode from any season, and even vote on your favorite.

here are some of my favorites:

Dwight Schrute - "The eyes, are the groin of the head."

Andy - "They say you should never mix business with pleasure.  Really.  Then explain to me how a putt-putt golf company operates."

Michael Scott - "Business is like a jungle.  And I am like a tiger.  And Dwight is like a monkey that stabs the tiger in the back with a stick.  Does the tiger fire the monkey?  Does the tiger transfer the monkey to another branch?  Pun.  There is no way of knowing what goes on inside a tiger's head.  We don't have the technology."

Back up to speed...

since it's been forever since i posted on here, i figured i'd update everyone as to what's new in our lives.

one of my last posts was almost one whole year ago.  i had just finished tiling our kitchen.  that has turned out okay.  i have had one tile crack on me, and the trim still needs some attention, but i'm pleased with my project overall.

we've done alot more updating since then.  we recently repaired some settling cracks in the doorframes and repainted the living room, the upstairs hall, the dining room, and the kitchen.  we also touched up the doorframes and chair rails.  it's looking very nice now.  we've still got some improvements to go, though.

brooke is doing fantabulous in pharmacy school.  she is almost finished with her 2nd of 4 years at Samford's pharmacy school here in Birmingham.  this was supposed to be the most difficult year of school, but she's done awesome so far.  she has about 3 weeks left before she's done for the summer.  she may sleep for a whole week....bless her heart...she's so exhausted.  she still works with Publix pharmacies, just not 20 hours a week like she did her first year.  

brooke recently completed a 10K race in Mobile, AL.  i'll post pics and an entry about that soon.

i currently work 3 days at my practice at a Sam's Club Optical in Homewood, AL.  then, i work 2 other days at a private practice in Cullman, AL.  it's been good to split my time between such opposite settings.  it helps me understand the needs of both entities.  i play softball every monday night with a church team.  i'm addicted to fantasy baseball.

we still go to church at Shades Mountain church of Christ.  our group there has really grown recently.  we just finished our spring gospel meeting.  we're planning a senior member appreciation dinner in late June, VBS in July, and an area wide youth rally in August.  so we'll have a busy summer.

my parents moved to Montgomery about a year and a half ago.  they have loved being so much closer to all us kids.  especially the grandkids.  be patient, Mimi and Pa; we'll contribute when brooke gets out of school!  :)

that's been our life the past year in a nutshell.  keep posted for more pics and updates soon.

rick

ICURIS - Reloaded

so here goes another shot at blogging.  thanks to everyone for giving me another try.  in the past, i've drifted away from regular blogging for one of two main reasons:

A. i haven't taken the time to sit and write, and

B. i don't think we're quite interesting enough for regular blogs.

here's what i mean:  i absolutely love the life that brooke and i have for ourselves.  God has blessed us beyond what we deserve.  we've been able to avoid tragedy and have been well taken care of for our entire marriage.  i get up and go to work.  brooke gets up and goes to school.  we come home, eat supper, watch TV, and go to sleep.  okay, maybe we're not that monotonous, but our lives are pretty care-free at this point.  

maybe i'm just not good at realizing the crazy things that are happening all around me that make life interesting.  so, that being said, i'm gonna give it another go.  

i was inspired by my sister kristi's recent blog about the wild things that some of her clients have told her.  so here's a short list of the things i've experienced in my almost 3 years as an optometrist:

1.  our eye charts at work have both letters and numbers.  the numbers are designed to denote which line the patient is reading (20/20, 20/40, etc.).  the 20/25 line reads: "A P S O 2 5".  if patients are struggling to get the first 4 letters, i'll usually encourage them by saying, "the last 2 on this line are numbers...".  i'll feel good, because i've just narrowed their selection pool from 26 to 10.  you would not believe how many people respond, "okay...that's Z and S...".  

2. while working as an optician before optometry school, i was dispensing my first pair of glasses to a young boy.  his mother asked if i had already "put the medicine" in the glasses.  

i thought for a second, and said, "actually, there isn't medicine in there....the lenses just bend the light to help him see better."  

she responded, "so you put the medicine in there already?"

i said, "yes ma'am." 

thanks for reading.  i'll try my best to put up new entries at least once a week.