Get Glue

It is said that over time, married couples begin to resemble one another.

Fortunately for my Supermodel Wife, this isn't the case in our situation. I mean, it would be a tragedy for her to begin to look like an old, fat, bald guy just because she had the bad judgment to marry a wildebeest like myself.

But that's not to say that over the course of years, shared experiences haven't given us a few physical similarities. Such an experience happened over the weekend.

It was the first Saturday in forever that we didn't have some kind of social or familial engagement. So I had the day open to focus attention on some much needed yard work. I spent the morning trimming trees and bagging up the debris in the back yard, spraying weeds, putting out cancer-causing crabgrass preemergent and cleaning some spilled plutonium off the back patio.

Pretty typical suburban stuff.

By about noon I'd worked my way to the front yard where I was shearing back some shrubbery that had become overgrown due to the sudden spring and our many busy and out-of-town weekends as of late. I was making pretty quick progress on the overgrowth thanks to the Black&Decker cordless electric hedge trimmer that I received as a Father's Day gift a few years ago.

(Ever notice how all Father’s Day gifts are either clothing or tools to "help” you work more?)

Anyway, I was happily buzzing along removing twig after twig of overgrown Japanese Snowball and ornamental apple tree in front of our house. I was trying to avoid disturbing a robin’s nest (with three bright blue eggs in it) when I reached up to remove a severed tree branch with my left hand. Stupidly, I simultaneously brought the electric hedge trimmers down with my right hand, getting the business end close to my left ring finger… a bit too close, as it turns out.

The pain of the cutting blade biting into the fatty tip of my finger was still radiating up my arm as I ran cursing into the kitchen, a trail of blood droplets left on the grass, sidewalk, driveway and garage floor (not to mention my t-shirt and shorts). Instinctively, I put my injured finger under a stream of cold water in the kitchen sink. It took about a second to see that quick medical attention was in order.

The pad of my ring finger, from about the middle of my finger nail to about 60 percent around my finger, was neatly sliced and dangling by the remaining 40 percent of the fingertip, which was still attached and in pretty good condition, all things considered.

I wrapped a piece of ice to my finger with a paper towel while my wife and hero, who was making lunch, recruited our next door neighbor to watch the kids. We headed to the emergency room at St. Luke’s South. After a quick three and a half hour wait, a tetanus shot and me explaining the accident three or four times to various nurses and doctors, I returned home with my finger tip superglued back in place underneath a Band-Aid with instructions not to get it dirty or wet.

Now, for those of you who have been reading this blog for a few years, some of this might sound vaguely familiar. But I can assure you that I’m not making up new stories due to a lack of anything else to write about. I mean, I do have a lack of anything interesting to write about, but I’m not repeating stories because of it.

It so happens that a similar accident befell my Supermodel Wife a couple of years, only in her case the cutting instrument was a cheese slicer, and she lost part of her thumb. You can read more about that at the link, but here’s a reminder of what it looked like after a week or so of healing.
For comparison, looking at this picture of my ring finger after a day or two of healing, you can see that it’s not near as bad.
But still it’s one of those shared experiences that helps make us old married folks begin to look like each other.

UPDATE:
There's still a lot of healing to do. The glue used on my finger turned out not to be so super so I went to the walk-in clinic this morning to get it redressed and re-glued. According to the Nurse Practitioner I saw, the glue used costs about $200 per .5ml vial. Thank you Obamacare!

tagged: injury, finger, medicine, home improvement, accident, hedge trimmer

YouTube Tuesday: Summer cold remedy

From what I'm hearing the summer cold season has started in earnest. In my opinion, summer colds are the worst kind because not only do you have to put up with the coughing, congestion, runny nose, aches, pains and fevers, you have to deal with this during 105-degree 105 percent humidity days.

Luckily, I haven't contracted the summer cold yet, but it's really only a matter of time. As a public service to my coworkers and cotwitterers who are fighting this disease already, I'm sharing my recipe for my favorite remedy -- a little concoction I like to call NyquiFed.

All you do is take two hits of Sudafed (or your pseudoephedrine of choice) and chase it with a double shot Cherry NyQuil (the original stuff, not that worthless non-drowsy daytime shit).

Next, put on Just Dropped In by Kenny Rogers, sink back into your couch and enjoy the ride.



tagged: YouTube, Tuesday, summer, cold, NyQuil, Kenny Rogers, Sudfed, health

My international influence widens

Just a quick update on my diabolical Plan to Take Over the World:

In 2009 I made a series of moves whereby I placed some of my minions in the upper levels of key international governmental and quasi-governmental organizations. No need to get into too much detail. Suffice it to say that when the time comes, you'll know who they are.

But be that as it may, it's always good to run a few test scenarios to make sure your organization is functioning well. And I'm just going to let you in on a test I ran recently to illustrate my point.

You may recall back in 2009 there was a worldwide freakout about a nasty little virus we knew as Test Virus 1108 H1N1, or the Swine Flu. Now of course I'm not going to take direct responsibility for the production and release of this viral strain (at least not in a public forum like this, wink wink). But I will say that the presence of the Swine Flu gave me just the opportunity to test my moles in the international governmental organizations.

Last October, when I wrote a post about getting a flu shot, I included a clandestine message...

They started out a few years ago with the "Bird Flu" (later called "Avian Flu") that was killing people in Asia. Nobody was scared of it when it was just called "H5N1." But when the media got it's talons on "Bird Flu" -- well, there's a hook you can build some hysteria around.

This year it's the Swine Flu -- very catchy. Gets the media excited. Gets the citizenry in an uproar. Gets some much needed demand for the pharmaceutical industry right in the middle of a consumer recession.

Ah, now we're getting somewhere. It's How to Survive a Recession 101: Create A Demand For A Product For Which You're The Only Provider.

And I'm happy to report that one of my operatives (codenamed "Wardog") in the European Parliament picked up on my message and has spearheaded an official inquiry to investigate the whole Swine Flu scam.

The Council of Europe member states will launch an inquiry in January 2010 on the influence of the pharmaceutical companies on the global swine flu campaign, focusing especially on extent of the pharma‘s industry’s influence on WHO. The Health Committee of the EU Parliament has unanimously passed a resolution calling for the inquiry. The step is a long-overdue move to public transparency of a “Golden Triangle” of drug corruption between WHO, the pharma industry and academic scientists that has permanently damaged the lives of millions and even caused death.

So there you go. Phase 2 of my Plan to Take Over the World is well underway as my operatives move to seize control of the World Health Organization and the Kansas City Missouri Parks Board.

tagged: Swine Flu, Europe, H1N1, Big Pharma, pharmaceutical, pandemic

YouTube Tuesday: Fear and Loathing in the Major Leagues

No real theme to today's edition of YouTube Tuesday. It's just that I ran across this amazingly entertaining story of the role of LSD in a major league pitcher's no-hitter back in the '70s.

Here's what the YouTube description has to say:

In celebration of the greatest athletic achievement by a man on a psychedelic journey, No Mas and artist James Blagden proudly present the animated tale of Dock Ellis' legendary LSD no-hitter. In the past few years weve heard all too much about performance enhancing drugs from greenies to tetrahydrogestrinone, and not enough about performance inhibiting drugs. If our evaluation of the records of athletes like Mark McGwire, Roger Clemens, Marion Jones, and Barry Bonds needs to be revised downwards with an asterisk, we submit that that Dock Ellis record deserves a giant exclamation point. Of the 263 no-hitters ever thrown in the Big Leagues, we can only guess how many were aided by steroids, but we can say without question that only one was ever thrown on acid.

Check it...

tagged: YouTube, Tuesday, LSD, drugs, baseball, Dock Ellis, culture

Go to health care

This is the kind of thing I'm talking about (thanks for bird dogging this, jdoublep).

It's clear that to make a mostly free-market plan work, those with chronic illnesses need to be protected. Fortunately, the template is already in place. About 30 states, usually those without requirements for community rating or guaranteed issue, have high-risk pools that automatically enroll people with pre-existing conditions. Their premiums generally can't exceed 150% of the average plan within the state, even though the patients may actually cost far more. The full costs of the high-risk pools are covered from state income- and sales-tax revenues.

It seems like so much of the so-called discussion on this issue (and pretty much any issue of public policy these days) is of the either or nature. Either you're in favor of the government completely taking over health care and providing everything to everybody, or you think health care is fine the way it is and that government should leave the situation unchanged because socialism is teh suck.

It's rare to have people take a look at the entire scope of the problem, think outside of the party lines, and propose options other than the two extremes. And even though health care reform this year is dead, hopefully we'll start to see more of this kind of thinking.

tagged: health care, reform, Obama, Shawn Tully, partisanship, politics, policy

Serendipity do

I think it’s cool when things seem to happen for a reason.

Doesn’t have to be a great big chain of cosmic events altering the time-space continuum and creating alternate realities. Although I guess in a cosmic sense we wouldn’t really know when that sort of thing happens anyway.

What I’m talking about is those seemingly trivial, seemingly insignificant events that happen every day that just fit together so well that it makes you wonder about fate, providence, whatever.

I say they’re seemingly insignificant, but I think these chains of events happen more often than we notice. And perhaps they are more important than we think they are.

Here’s the latest example from my awesome life.

So I’m at a certain sports/entertainment event well known for the proliferation of product sponsors. I’m wandering around a concourse area when a helpful chap comes up and offers me a free sample box of Goody's Headache Powder - Cool Orange.

It's a powder (like Kool Aid) that you pour into a bottle of water, let it dissolve, then drink the potion for headache relief. Nifty idea, I thought. Wonder if it works.

I stuck the three dosage packs in my pocket, anticipating a headache later in the day from too much sun and fun. But with all the merry-making and being awesome, I soon forgot they were there and it turned out I didn’t need them anyway.

Now fast forward ten or eleven hours. It’s two in the morning and I’m returning to the hotel. I stop at the front desk to check for messages and mail. There’s another fellow talking to the front desk attendant. The woman behind the counter seems to have disappointed him, saying something like “I’m sorry sir, we just can’t give out that kind of thing here.”

But the guy is insistent.

“Look all I need is some Tylenol, or some ibuprofen or something,” he says. “My wife is next door and she’s got a terrible headache. There aren’t any stores open around here.”

I instantly remember the headache powder packets I've had in my pocket all day and it all seems too perfect. I size up the guy and quickly conclude he isn’t some kind of ibuprofen junkie. I pull the medicine out and slide it down the check-in desk counter to him.

“Try these,” I say. “I don’t know if they’ll work, but it’s better than nothing.”

He recognizes the packets and is very gracious.

“Aw thanks man!” he says. ”This is great. You’re really helping me out. I really appreciated it.”

He offers a handshake which I return.

“No problem,” I say. “Hope it helps.”

“I want to repay you. Are you going to be in town for a while?” he asks.

I tell him I leave in the morning – actually, in a few hours. But no repayment is needed.

“Well are you going to be back next week? I own the bar across the street and you can be my guest for drinks or something.”

Tempted as I am, I’m pretty well exhausted from being awesome all day, and I’m already thinking about the travel day tomorrow – er, later today. I tell him I won’t be back in town and repeat that no repayment is necessary. It's just me doin’ a solid for a brutha (hell, I didn’t pay for the stuff anyway).

And besides, I couldn’t help but mull over the possibility that God... The Universe... karma... or whatever... had me bump into the medicine marketer and get a free sample for the express purpose of delivering it to this guy’s ailing wife a few hours later.

For that matter, the entire purpose of my life could have been to be in that specific place at that particular moment with free samples of headache medicine in my pocket just at the time when someone needed free headache medicine.

That may sound trivial and unimportant, but how do I know that the guy’s wife wasn’t working on a key breakthrough in the cure for cancer and if she could just get rid of her headache she could concentrate on finally working out the solution.

Or maybe she was about to finally figure out how to achieve peace in the Middle East? Or perhaps she'd worked out a way for newspapers to make money? Or it's possible that she was about to develop a treatment for Larry Moore's extreme geezerism.

We just don’t know, is all I’m sayin’. And I couldn’t very well take payment for playing such a pivotal roll in this cosmic drama. It just wouldn't be good karma, you know?

So I left him with these words before heading up to my room.

“Look, you don’t owe me any money. But some day, and that day may never come, I’ll call upon you to do a service for me. But until that day, accept this headache medicine as a gift from me.”

tagged: fate, karma, serendipity, Goody's Headache Powder, medicine, anecdote

Ticking away

Returning to my my ancestral home, as we did last weekend for an Easter McBash, is always inspiring. I always seem to come away with a good idea or two.

That was the case this time as well. And as usual, one of the best ideas was inspired by the smallest of creatures.

I've mentioned the prevalence of those small, blood-sucking arachnids, ticks, in previous posts. Well, since it's now spring, they were out in force again in the woods along the river near my parents' house.

Both my dad and my Supermodel Wife (among others) found themselves picking the crawling little critters off their skins. But luckily I escaped the weekend bloodletting unscathed, as did our Jack Russel Terrier.

It was that last bit about the dog that led me to my next million dollar idea.

You see, our dog gets a monthly pill to protect him against fleas and ticks. I'm not sure what kind of chemistry is involved to make it work, for all I know there's some kind of magic pixie dust that wards off sanguivorous creepies.

That's not really the point. The point is, if they can make this kind of pill for dogs, why not make the same kind of pill for people?

I mean people and dogs share a similar physiology, right? Sure, there are obvious differences (dogs have the four legs, much more hair and the ability and irresistible desire to eat poop), but both are warm blooded mammals. Both can catch a ball, chase the mailman, and roll over and play dead.

Heck, our vet has even recommended giving our dog small doses of Pepcid for his occasional discomfort caused by a sour stomach. And if a dog can take human medicine, why can't people take the magic pill to repel ticks (and heck, fleas too)?

So if you're an aspiring chemist/pharmacists who's tired of the meth production game, or some kind or R&D guy at Bayer or some other pharma company, give me a call and we can talk about you buying my idea. Because as of this moment I hereby claim a copyright on Tixaqyll* and any other drug that performs as described.

*As always, consult your physician to see if Tixaqyll is right for you. May cause daytime drowsiness and sensitivity to sunlight and garlic.

tagged: tick, health, sanguivorous, Bayer, Pepcid, medicine

Flu Fighters

Yep, I've got it too.

I could see it coming a mile away. Three of the four cubes neighboring mind were all sick in the previous weeks. But like a damsel tied to the tracks in a Western melodrama, there was nothing I could do to avoid it.

Actually, I think I may have contracted it from The D. He comments here pretty frequently and I don't think he washes his hands before he uses his keyboard. Of course, he seems to be having a harder time with it. My symptoms aren't as severe.

I can only assume that's due to my superior genes with their Master Race antiviral abilities handed down by my German ancestors.

Anyway, I raise a glass of Nyquil and toast your health. Here's hoping you don't get sick.

tagged: flu, sick, Nyquil, Down with the Sickness, Richard Cheese

Rule of Thumb

Since we returned home from our Christmas trips, life at the emawkc household has revolved around my Supermodel Wife's injured thumb.

A few days after the previous post on the topic, the general practitioner referred us to a plastic surgeon specializing in skin grafts due to a mild infection that had developed in what used to be the tip of my SMW's thumb.

The specialist cleaned out the wound with a scalpel, removing the cauterized tissue to encourage the new skin to grow more quickly. He took a culture to better diagnose the infection and prescribe an effective antibiotic (and, I presume, to make sure we're not at risk from the dreaded MRSA).

He also directed us to soak the healing thumb in the mornings and evenings in warm, soapy water and then redress. Unfortunately, the first night we did this, there was a lot of pain as the dressing had stuck to the wound. Pulling it off was excruciating.

Last night was much better. Much less pain. We scheduled to go back to the plastic surgeon's on Monday for a check up.

Oh, before I forget, here's the obligatory picture.

Have you had lunch yet?

tagged: thumb, cheese slicer, blood, bloody, cauterize, MRSA, skin

Merry Bloody Christmas

To her credit, not that she needs more credit in my book, my supermodel wife didn't swear. Didn't cuss, didn't really scream like I would have if it were me standing there with my hand under the faucet watching blood spew from my fingers.

If it were me, you can bet that the sonsobitches, F-bombs, and even the nuclear MF-bombs would be going off all over the kitchen in my mom's house where we were visiting.

But I'm getting ahead of myself. Let me reset the scene with some background.

We're all settling down for a traditional Christmas Eve lunch of Tuscan Potato Soup. I'm at the kitchen island preparing a plate for our 5-year-old daughter, and my SMW is across from me slicing some fancy cheese to go on some fancy crackers.

And because it was fancy cheese for fancy crackers, my dad gave her a fancy surgical steel cheese knife to cut it with. It was the kind with the blade through the middle that you're supposed to run over the edge of the cheese to cut a slice.

Like this one...

Anyhoo, SMW makes a witty remark about how the device looks like a deadly weapon, then proceeds to assume the cheese-slicing position.

Unfortunately, the cheese is a little hard. I think it had been in the fridge and wasn't quite thawed. So she adjusted her grip on the cheese slicer and put added effort into pulling it toward her. Suddenly, with a quick slip like an assassin's blade, the razor edge of the cheese slicer slid through the cheese... but it didn't stop with the cheese.

In a split second, the vorpal blade went snicker-snack, right down the length of fancy Cheddar and into and through the soft pad of the tip of my supermodel wife's thumb.

As the exclamations rang out, "OH MY GOD! Omigod, Ohmigod! OH MY GOD!" a slice of thumb, just the right size to top a Wheat Thin, landed on the counter top.

Out of some deep evolutionary impulse, she rushed to the sink to put the wound under running water. It was there that I caught my first clear view of the cleanly cut thumb, or rather the cleanly cut crater where the thumb used to be.

We all snapped into action. A paper towel was used at first to try to stop the bleeding while my sister-in-law brought the gauze and bandages from the first aid kit. My mother found the severed chunk of thumb and put it in a small container with some ice.

They call the emergency room as my wife and I head to the car. We turn the 20-minute drive to the ER into a 15-minute one, and soon we're rehashing the incident with physician's assistant, showing her the bite-sized bit of thumb we brought with us.

"I have some bad news," the PA said. "We're going to take off the dressing and bathe your thumb in betadine. It will hurt worse than anything you've felt so far. Then we'll have to redress it. We can't sew on the rest of your thumb, since it's already dead."

With that, the PA made good on her promise. Blood began to gush as the dressing was removed. When the thumb was dipped into the betadine bath (to the stifled cries of SMW) , a river of dark red blood began to mix with the pool of light brown liquid. The amount of blood prompted the PA to revise her prognosis.

"Okay, this is worse than I thought. I'm going to get my doctor in here to look at it, but I think we're going to have to cauterize the wound."

The doctor arrived shortly and concurred.

"It looks like you've cut deep enough to slice the small artery and also part of the nerve that runs through your thumb. That's why there's so much blood and so much pain," he said.

A blood-pressure cuff was used to help stop the bleeding while anesthetic was injected around the base of the thumb. Then the doctor performed the silver-nitrate chemical cauterization, turning the wound black and making it look even worse.

And, just because I know your aching to see it, here's what the thumb looked like after about four days.

Doctors have told her that the thumb will grow back over the next six to eight weeks, but it will remain tender long after that.

So how was your Christmas?

tagged: Christmas Eve, thumb, cheese slicer, blood, bloody, cauterize, silver nitrate

Nutritional secrets of New York City cabbies

So I'm riding shotgun in a Jeep Liberty cab inbound to Manhattan from La Guardia.

Three of my colleagues are crowded into the backseat, discussing the latest work gossip. I'm hanging on for dear life while the Philippine cabby nonchalantly executes acts of automotive daring that would make Jack Bauer carsick.

We end up stuck in slow traffic near the Midtown Tunnel. The driver, seemingly oblivious to the relieved silence that had befallen the passenger compartment while we were catching our collective breaths, went rummaging through the depths of a large lunch sack sitting between us on the console.

He pulls out an avocado and holds it up like a magician producing a rabbit from a top hat.

"You know what this is?" he asks in his best broken English.

"Yeah. I like avocados," I answer.

"You eat one of these every day for 45 days," he said. "It will make you head come up."

"Whatsthatyousay?" was my reply. "I think my head is up as far as I want it."

"No. It will make your head come up," he repeated, pantomiming a pinching movement with his fingers, as if he were pulling strings out of the top of his head.

Through a combination guesswork and charades (which had the added affect allowing the cabby to demonstrate his skill at driving without the use of his hands), my colleagues and I learned that the he was telling me to eat avocados to make my hair grow.

"Makes small hair grow big and strong," he said. "If have no hair, not work. But like you, weak hair will be strong.

"One each day for 45 days."

Now granted, I'm aware (to paraphrase Dennis Miller) that as I've pushed on into my mid- to late-30s, much of the population of the once bustling downtown of my scalp has fled to the more desirable neighborhoods of my nose, ears and back.

And granted, the cabby seemed very sincere. He was grappling with a "molting" problem of his own and was eager to share with me what he thought was the solution. His theory, as I was able to decipher, was that the oil in the avocado would work as a sort of follicle fertilizer, strengthening the puny hairs so that they become big, strong hairs. Kind of like an organic Rogaine.

Frankly, looking at the cabby's locks, I wasn't convinced.

But you tell me. Is this worth trying? Has anyone else ever heard of this? Is it healthy to eat an avocado a day for a month and a half?

And more importantly, has anyone ever gotten any bad advice from a cabby?

tagged: New York, taxi, cabby, hair loss, avocado, travel, health

Falling China Star

Life is full of questions that don't have easy or concrete answers.

Why do bad things happen to good people? What's the square root of -1? Is this coffee regular or decaf? Do these jeans make me look fat?

But there are some questions to which the answer is indisputable, where all of the evidence points to a final undeniable truth. For example, when my Supermodel wife asked me last night if I thought our daughter had food poisoning, it didn't take a Magic 8 Ball to see that all signs pointed to yes.

What were the signs?

There was the large pool of puke that I had just finished cleaning up about 30-minutes before my Supermodel Wife returned from a well-deserved night out with the girls.

There was the three sets of vomit-stained sheets currently going through the laundry, along with Domino, the loyal stuffed lion who is king of the plush toys jungle that is our daughter's room.

Not to mention the shart-stained pants and continuing dry heaves that kept us up until 3:30 this morning.

The evening had started out so well. With mom out for the night, I offered to take the kid to her favorite restaurant, the China Star buffet at 95th and Metcalf. She was excited. She had her favorite foods, green and red jello, peaches, sweet and sour chicken with rice noodles, and of course soft serve ice cream to top it all off.

Who knows which food item held the poisonous bacterium that would cause havoc in her digestive system for the next eight hours. Hell, it could have been the plates or forks or spoons. It really makes no difference.

My Supermodel wife wanted me to call the restaurant (China Star buffet at 95th and Metcalf) to complain. But what's the point? I blame myself actually.

I mean let's face it, when you go to buffet like that you're consuming food that is sitting out in warm pans for who knows how long. Dozens if not scores of people are walking by the very morsels you'll put in your mouth, spreading their germs. Getting sick should pretty much be expected, even though China Star buffet at 95th and Metcalf seems like a fairly clean place by buffet standards.

Anyway, I'm not planning on suing or anything. I figure now that I know the dangers of eating at China Star buffet at 95th and Metcalf, I and my loved ones can avoid that particular establishment. We can choose a cleaner, more hygienic place to dine (like in the tepid water under the Broadway Bridge for example).

Suffice it to say that China Star buffet at 95th and Metcalf is now a former favorite restaurant.

tagged: food poisoning, Chinese food, China Star buffet, puke, vomit, Magic 8 Ball, sick

I can see clearly now

Saturday morning I did something I never thought I would do.

I opened the medicine cabinet and threw away all of my contact lens paraphernalia. Lenses, lens cases, cleaning solutions, eye drops -- all went into the trash.

The "friken laser" surgery was a success. No more glasses, no more contacts, no more squinting and fumbling for my "eyes" when I wake up in the morning. For the first time in years, I'm no longer a "four-eyes."

Everything went pretty well. There were a few things that I didn't like, but on balance I'd say it's the best $3,000 I've ever spent (well, except for that weekend in Niagara. Man, that was one crazy Yom Kippur!).

So first the negatives. I felt like a complete douche bag in the pre-op (that's medical talk for "pre-operation") room. They made me wear a dorky hat and matching dorky booties over my shoes, smeared yellowish-brown iodine over my face and told me to relax.

This minor humiliation was remedied slightly by the four other people in the room who were similarly attired. It was remedied even more by the Valium they gave me to help effect the aforementioned relaxation.

As for the surgery, there was some minor discomfort caused by the clamps that keep you're eyes open and the scalpel used to slice open your cornea. I'd say it was about the same level of discomfort as getting your teeth scraped by the dentist. It wasn't that bad, really, and I think the doc liked it when I made the laser sound effects (piong! zwiong!).

The only other negative is the taste of the antibiotic eye drops they gave me ("Because this is a surgery and there is a risk of infection with all surgeries"). It turns out that when you put eye drops into your eyes, part of the solution seeps down through your sinus cavity and into the back of your throat and onto your tongue. The eye drops, which I take every four hours, are as bitter as a Democrat after election day.

But all the discomfort is worth it. It's the strangest thing to not reach for glasses first thing in the morning. Medical science truly is a miracle.

Now about that stem cell treatment for baldness...
tagged:eye surgery, laser, lasik, Logan's Run, Goldfinger, Star Wars