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bachelorsurgeon
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Name: John-Mark
Birthday: 6/24/1984
Gender: Male
Interests: Everything. Well... not quite everything. I don't have any interest in sewing, knitting, crocheting, or other methods of clothing production. Otherwise... pretty much everything.
More specifically, though, I've become particularly interested in the problem of world poverty. 3.2 billion people currently live on $2/day or less, and I think that's absolutely shameful for the rest of us. Microfinance loans are an exciting new development, and I really hope they take off. Check out Kiva.org to learn more.
Expertise: Nothing. I'm pretty good at making clothes...NOT! I once learned how to make buttonholes, but never actually used the skill. :eyeroll:
Occupation: School teacher.
Industry: Medical...eventually
Message: message meEmail: email me
Website: visit my website
Member Since:
5/31/2005
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| ...since I know you all are dying to know. 
I went to my retinologist this morning. After the prerequisite poking and prodding, he gave me the best news possible: I don't have a tear in my retina, and I don't need surgery. There is a combination of factors contributing to my vision loss, but all of these factors should resolve themselves in the next several weeks. The blood clot should resorb on its own, the slight shredding in the retina should scar itself back into place, and the possible damage to my optic nerve should heal on its own. Relieved I am! I think maybe I'll celebrate by hosting a huge airsoft war at my place. 
Seriously, though, I do need to thank all those of you who were praying for me. Despite what my dad will tell you, I was, in fact, quite frightened by the prospect of losing an eye. I can't help but wonder if perhaps God used His divine laser to help things along a bit. If He did, it must have been because of your prayers. Thank you.
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| I finally went to the doctor on Wednesday because my eye was starting to get worse. The local ophthalmologist poked and prodded my eye and sent me to a retina specialist who poked and prodded and told me to come back Monday. Apparently it was too tender for him to poke or prod it properly.
Since there was nothing better to do, I decided to go to Illinois for a family reunion. While there, I began to experience some vision loss on the right side. After more than an hour of calling around I finally found an ophthalmologist who could see me. He poked and prodded my eye for a while and told me that the vision loss was likely not a detaching retina as we had feared. Rather, there is a gigantic blood clot floating around inside my eye. It will be resorbed with no outside intervention. The bad news, though, was that there is a small tear in the retina that will need to be fixed. I have an appointment tomorrow morning to do just that.
Now fixing a tear in a retina can be relatively simple or it can be quite complicated. If this one is simple I'll be in and out the same day and told to take it easy for a week. If it's complicated I'll be on my back for a week and told to take it easy for a month. I have plans to fly out to Colorado on Thursday so I really really need this to be a simple fix. If I'm stuck on my back for a week I just might go completely nuts. In other words, if any of you have any spare prayer time I would really appreciate if you would use it for my benefit.
If you find grammatical, punctuational, or spelling errors in this post, please forgive them. I am currently on the way home from Illinois and using my brother's iPhone to update. The thing is way cool but not quite as helpful as a full-sized computer. | | |
| Very many things have happened since I last updated. While all of these events were quite important, and though they were quite interesting at the time, none of them are really that interesting now. Therefore, in the interest of keeping the interest of all involved, I will not write a gigantic "catch-up" post detailing all these important-at-the-time-but-boring-now events. Instead, I will pretend those events did not occur (or else that you already know about them) and move on with a not-so-long-but-perhaps-equally-boring post about events that are more recent.
Last night I almost lost my right eye. To make a long story somewhat shorter, I got shot with an airsoft gun from about ten feet away, and the BB made a direct hit on my eyeball. It never really hurt that badly, but I immediately began applying cool compresses to keep down the swelling. My vision in that eye was quite blurry last night, but I think that may have something to do with the fact that the BB had somehow stayed under my eyelid and gotten stuck somewhere in my eye socket. Today the white of my eye is quite bloody, but my vision is mostly good. Hopefully things will return to normal within the next few days. This eye patch is about to drive me crazy. 
In other news, Kuhns Manufacturing, the company my dad started several years ago, has seen a massive increase in sales this year. The farm economy has been booming because of record commodities prices, and a faint echo of that boom has found itself to our facilities. We're working on upgrading our infrastructure, but at this point we're just plain busy. I'm not complaining, mind you. I have to have all these long hours to support my school-teaching habit. 
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| In case you do not believe that I am (and have been) busy, here his a short rundown of what my life looks like for the next week or so: Today is the school picnic to celebrate the end of the year. From the picnic I will be driving over to Westcliffe (about four hours) and spending the night with some old friends from Ohio. Tomorrow I will leave from there, swing through Canon City to pick up another guy and, driving through the night, will arrive in southern Indiana early Monday morning for a one-week boys camp. When camp ends on Friday, I will hurry home so that I will be able to go to Pennsylvania for a youth seminar. When I get home from that on Sunday afternoon I will at last be able to breathe again. 
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). I was determined to get the cheapest ticket I could, so I was experimenting with several dates and finally found something that worked. I flew out to Colorado on Thursday (July 24) thinking that I would fly home again on Monday (July 28). Only somehow I had booked a ticket to return on Tuesday (July 29). Therefore I was stuck in Colorado for an extra day in which I had nothing to do and nobody with whom to do it because all of my friends are constructively employed and most employers are quite derstanding (or would you say un-understanding?) of employees who take off to do nothing with their nothing-doing friends. 
(How's that for a stiltedly grammatically correct run-on sentence? 
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