Surgeon's, Optometrist's and Doctor's........

Been a busy week health wise for dh and I.  On Wednesday we had to be at the Toronto Western Hospital for 8:30 am, as he had an appointment with the Eye Surgeon at either 9 am or 9:30 am, no one could make up their mind which one it was?  Didn't matter as no one got in on time.  Dh had to have a Laser Iridotomy.

Laser iridotomy is a surgical procedure that is performed on the eye to treat angle closure glaucoma, a condition of increased pressure in the front chamber (anterior chamber) that is caused by sudden (acute) or slowly progressive (chronic) blockage of the normal circulation of fluid within the eye. The block occurs at the angle of the anterior chamber that is formed by the junction of the cornea with the iris. All one needs to do to see this angle is to look at a person's eye from the side. Angle closure of the eye occurs when the trabecular meshwork, the drainage site for ocular fluid, is blocked by the iris. Laser iridotomy was first used to treat angle closures in 1956. During this procedure, a hole is made in the iris of the eye, changing its configuration. When this occurs, the iris moves away from the trabecular meshwork, and proper drainage of the intraocular fluid is enabled.

Read more: http://www.surgeryencyclopedia.com/La-Pa/Laser-Iridotomy.html#ixzz2CETKCuxu

In layman's terms, there are channels around your eye ball's, that slowly close up.  If allowed to close up you can go blind.  So they make a hole in your iris and this allows the liquid to wander around the eye and releases the pressure.

It was very successful and he goes back in two weeks for a follow up appointment.  I couldn't even sit through the consultation and testing as it totally grossed me out.  We all should pray and hope that I NEVER EVER need anything done with my eyes as I am a total baby when it comes to eyes.  It was $28 to park for over two hours at the hospital, luckily I found a parking spot across the road for $10.  It took us two sodding hours to get to the hospital from our house.  How people commute to down town Toronto is beyond me!!!

On Tuesday morning I went to the Optometrist's to have an eye exam.  I would rather go to the dentist and have my teeth pulled than have my eye's tested.  I DO NOT DO DROPS what so ever, so he made me do a slew of tests on my eyes and charged me $60 for those and $90 for the actual eye test.  My prescription has gone up to 1.75 from 1.50, so I need to get new lenses for my eye glasses for reading and close up work.  Otherwise my eyes are fine, and I left the office telling him I was NEVER EVER having those tests done again!!!

I then went to the doctor's about my rotten hand.  I have arthritis in my thumb joint that is why it is so sore.  Anyone with arthritis in their hands what do you do/use to get some relief.  I am being sent for another nerve test in my hand to see if the nerves are pinched AGAIN.  I also need x-rays on my hand to see what else is going on.

I wish I had never let her touch my right hand.  I can only type for a certain length of time now.  Driving kills me, hoovering is not much better.  I have very limited strength now in the right hand.  Once I have had the nerve test done I can then book an appointment to see the hand surgeon again.  There is no point doing it now until I get all the test results back.  My mam has arthritis in both of her hands, so it is maybe a hereditary thing?

If anyone has first hand info on arthritis I would love to hear your story.

So there you are.  I am hoping that's it for doctors for the next week or two!!

I will probably tick some people off but....

I have to do something.  I talked this over with Jane and she agreed with me.  

Every year I mail out Christmas cards to various people and more than half are to people in the UK.  Now granted a lot are family, but some are to friends and acquaintances in the UK.  I was looking through my list of who I had received cards, letters, notes and photos from last year.  I received only a couple of letters from people. Remember the majority of these people I don't talk to from one year to the next.  

Due to the lack of communication other than a Christmas card, it makes me wonder if they actually want any contact with us, and only send us a Christmas card because I send them one?  So this year I am giving them a "way to get out of sending us a Christmas card ever again card."  I composed my annual Christmas letter on Monday and mentioned that due to the cost of postage for us and how busy everyone else is, that if they wanted to stop sending us a Christmas card that was fine.  If they wanted to just send us email greetings, I have included my email address.  The choice is theirs; as to my mind if they can't even be bothered to include a few lines in a card I am quite sure they won't care one way or another if they mail us a Christmas card?

I am sure this will tick off some people, but I am also sure some people will be thankful that they don't have to trail to the post office for an international stamp.  Is there anyone else that feels this way?  I plan on having at least the Christmas cards with UK addresses on sent by the end of the week.  Stay tuned to see what happens.  By the way I asked dh about this and as he pointed out if it was up to him, no one would get a Christmas card!!!

Thanks to the temperatures being warm still on Monday I also managed to get some of the Christmas lights hung up on the deck, so another job out of the way.  Just as well as by Tuesday am it was flipping cold and after the rain we had late on Monday I now have an ice rink for the birdies:

Have to say there have been a few close calls when the birds come in to land!!

More photos from the baby shower.......

This time I am going to show you photos of games and details of the baby shower.  The first photo is one of the favours we gave out along with the tea cup, saucer, plate and spoon.

Inside the box was this, a small tin of loose leaf tea and a package of three filters to put the tea in; and all were packaged inside the green bag:

One of the games was disgusting if you ask me!!!  It was the dirty diaper game:

This is what was inside of the diaper:

This was the form we had to fill out, yes the diapers were filled with melted chocolate bars, still disgusting if you ask me:

Just for your info, only one person actually got two right, and they won.

Another game was the baby version of "The Price is Right,"

There were four items and you had to guess the price of each one and whoever got to the closest total price won:

Dd mother-in-law won that game, and we gave "R" all four of the items to take home.  The other game we played was guess how many candies were in the baby bottle.  As there were around 50 people at the shower we thought these type of games were easier to play, than group games.

Dd came up with this idea.  Everyone got a piece of card with "wishes for Baby," and had to fill it out and it was put into a binder for "R" to keep.

Dd best friend made this banner, you had to see it in person to see the detail, it was just gorgeous.

One of the diaper name tags had a sticker in it and they won a prize, everyone loved this idea as well.

Finally here is a photo of "R" in front of all her presents, she got a lot.

I have some more of the Indian baby shower which I'll share with you later in the week.

Baby shower photos (photo heavy)

I may split these up over a couple of days as there are a number of photos.

Here we are, dd, "R" and me........I am truly shocked I am actually smiling.  Hard to believe "R" is seven months pregnant there!!!

Lets look at the food:

This was the cold drink dd provided:

These are the cookies that dd best friend made, they were stunning; and she put a lot of work into them.

I purchased a small 5" cake for "R" to take home with her:

Another photo of the cupcake tree and cake:

A photo of the sandwiches and other things on the table:

This is a photo of the room we held the event in:

Birthday presents and are you a man or a woman?

Dd main present from us was a Sophie Conran vase to match all her other dinnerware she got as wedding gifts.  Love her in her birthday tiara!!

Her brother got her this birthday card; notice the 7th hand written in!!

The kids were dears and put up the snow fences for us............another job off the list!

I "stole" this from here as I thought it was funny....... Carla was talking about this store on her blog.  So are you a man or a woman when it comes to colours?

SOLD! and happy birthday to our daughter......

A guy came by one Friday night and bought the snow tires from us.  Got $400 for them, wanted $500; regardless they are gone and now I can get snow tires put on my car.  Still have to find another $600 to pay for them, but that's better than $1,000.  Must say I am glad I don't have to deal with this anymore, as there truly are some strange people who troll Kijiji.

It's our daughter's 27th birthday today.  She is like a small child as she is so excited about it.  She was telling me on Friday it was only one more sleep to her birthday!!  Must say it's infectious her enthusiasm for life.  I am making lunch for them all and we are having lasagna or fettuccine Alfredo, Cesar salad and garlic bread.  Followed by apple caramel pie with whipped cream or ice cream.  More or less all from M & M Meats.  I cashed in the $25 discount card when I spent $50.  I also picked up 2 x chicken lasagna, cheese and spinach cannelloni, three cheese pasta, 5 vegetable toasty's (no idea what those are about), steak and vegetable soup and loaded potato soup which I got free for spending over $10.  All in all it cost me $26.

I will post photos of what we got her tomorrow.  I am also getting the baby shower photos on Sunday, so fingers crossed I will be able to share with you on Monday.

On Friday the people down the hill from us was having some sort of fire all day.  I have no idea what on earth they were burning as the smoke was tremendous.  Luckily I didn't have my laundry out, otherwise it would have stunk of smoke.

Sad to hear about Bill Tarmey, "Jack Duckworth's" passing.  Always loved his and Vera's character on Coronation Street.

A story about a nana and her grandson......

The conversation went sort of like this:

Nana: I think you're getting too old for Advent calendars.....

Grandson:  (insert whiny voice here) but Nana, Christmas wouldn't be the same without the advent calendars.....

Nana: okay I'll keep on sending them.

This conversation happened around 6 or 7 years ago when ds was probably around 21 or 22.......

Yesterday I went to the post office to pick up a parcel that my mother sent..........yep the advent calendars.  Ds will be 29 in April and dd is 27 on Saturday..........

I wonder if I'll be a soft touch like my mam is when I have grand kids?  Now son-in-law doesn't get one as dd ends up eating his as well!!!

My poor old hand is still sore....that's why I haven't been on the computer much.