Category: Eyes

Running From The Reaper

My father died of his third heart attack at the age of 47. His brother had the first of several heart attacks at age 50. For a long time now, I’ve known that I’m going to have to run a little harder from The Reaper than most. If there’s one thing you can’t deny, it’s your DNA.

I’ve always worked hard to maintain a decent weight and I’ve been running regularly all my adult life. But since I turned forty, I’ve noticed the pounds creeping up and last winter after an extended bout of bronchitis and inactivity, things really got out of hand.… Read the rest

A Kindred Spirit

My post-Halloween depression is shared by a kindred spirit out west.

Kate, aka “girlfriday,” waxes eloquently (as she often does on a variety of topics) on the dearth of trick-or-treaters in her neck of the woods. I particularly like this quote:

“Packed like sardines into pre-fabricated, self-contained villages, we’re buried in gadgets designed to give us more time but we don’t seem to use it to meet the souls that live 15 feet away from us.”

halloween-eye.gifI’m buried in gadgets too, and maybe it’s time I took a stroll around the block and try to make some eye contact with a few of my neighbors.… Read the rest

Wainwright Saves

jesus-saves.jpgInto the sea of Cardinal red which filled downtown St. Louis during yesterday’s victory parade and celebration waded Dave Finke of Maryland Heights, Missouri. For Finke, a sidewalk evangelist, the “fields were red unto salvation.”

Hopping aboard a pair of stilts for maximum visibility, Finke carried a “Jesus Saves” sign in one hand and a cross in the other. He ambled about among the revelers, a veritable John the Baptist crying out in a wilderness of concrete, glass and steel.

Several partygoers stopped to have their pictures taken with Finke and engage him in conversation. Others offered up their own commentary asides as they passed him by.… Read the rest

Straightening Out the Bent Things

ist2_402082_bent_glasses.jpgSunday after church, I felt a large hand grab me firmly by the shoulder. I turned around and saw that it was one of our elders. Uh oh, I thought, what did I do (or more likely, say) this time? There I stood, a 40-something man, but I still felt like a little boy caught with his hand in the cookie jar.

No trouble this time, thankfully. The question was not “what did you do?” but more like “what could you do?” As in, “could you possibly go over to Huntsville Hospital and straighten out D’s glasses?”

D is a 14-year-old boy who was recently involved in a horse-riding accident.… Read the rest

An Office With A View–A Redux

After a stunningly fine weather weekend in Huntsville (sunny, temperature in the low 70s), today the forecast calls for windy conditions and up to an inch of rain.

When I look out my office window today, I don’t expect to be tempted too heavily. But that doesn’t mean I won’t have a great view.

(Note: Last time I checked, this was still Eyegal’s favorite post).

… Read the rest

Getting the Speck Out

cornealforeignbody.jpgIt’s always a good day at work when you can get one of these bad boys out of someone’s eye.

When I run, I feel His wrath. But when I remove a metallic corneal foreign body (rust ring and all) with one swipe of a 25G needle and leave only a 1mm epithelial divot, I feel His pleasure.

Androcles has nothing on me.

How can you say to your brother, ‘Let me take the speck out of your eye,’ when all the time there is a plank in your own eye? You hypocrite, first take the plank out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brother’s eye.

… Read the rest

An Eye is a Terrible Thing To Pluck

Sometimes object lessons go just a little too far.

Yesterday, our pulpit minister was preaching on purity and was reading Mark 9:47:

And if your eye causes you to sin, pluck it out. It is better for you to enter the kingdom of God with one eye than to have two eyes and be thrown into hell,

To emphasize the point, he brought his hand to his eye to illustrate what “plucking” looked like and to drive home his point. I immediately sensed danger, and I leaned foward at the ready, my professional instincts suddenly on full, red-eye alert. We all watched in horrified fascination as he sharply thrust his fingers toward his orbit in pincer-like fashion.… Read the rest

Eyeguy in the Sky

When I started Ocular Fusion 2.0 a couple of months ago, I gave you all fair warning that the retina in my header really works. Well, I wasn’t, as we say in these parts, “just whistling Dixie.”

Behold:

City of Children, Ensenada, Mexico.jpg

Ok, maybe I did have a little help from the folks at Google Earth, but what you’re seeing is a nice satellite image of the City of Children in Ensenada, Mexico. Eyegal and Number Two Son have trekked there this week as a part of a missionary group from our church. Number Two is busy with some building projects, teaching VBS, playing soccer (an indispensable part of any mission effort) and generally enjoying hanging out with the kids there.… Read the rest

Ocular Fusion 2.0–I’ll Be Watching You

the-all-seeing-eye_1_-217x240.jpgWhoa, what just happened you ask? Through the magic of a small piece of HTML-code strategically placed in my old site, you’ve been caught up and whisked away to Ocular Fusion 2.0 (www.ocularfusion.net). Talk about your raptures. Or would that be an alien abduction?

Anyway, now that you’re here stick around and, as we say in the South, “sit a spell.” I’ve still got some tweaking to do, but the bulk of the renovation is complete. Unlike my desk at work, the new site is clean, uncluttered and easy to navigate. No more depressing black either. I’ve decided (with fashion imput from my color consultant Scott) that brighter and cheerier colors are in order, the better to reflect my, uh, sanguine personality.… Read the rest

What’s On Your Window?

Although you wouldn’t know it from the amount of time I’ve spent recently blogging about my beloved Duke Blue Devils, I actually love soccer as much, if not more, than college hoops. I’m sure you’ll be reading some of my thoughts and observations about real football as I follow my sons’ soccer teams this spring and also as the FIFA World Cup approaches this summer.

I’m also an unabashed, card-carrying “eyeguy.” So imagine my delight when I recently discovered that I could combine two of the great passions in my life and enjoy them simultaneously–sort of like a Reeses Peanut Butter Cup or an Oreo cookie .… Read the rest

A New Nom De Plume

“To this day, the eye gives me a cold shudder.”

–Charles Darwin

The eye, the very thing that gave ol’ Chuck a case of the chills, never fails to give me a case of the warm fuzzies. I’m up to my eyeballs in eyeballs, and frankly, most days, I’m happier than a pig in slop. I believe I have an office with the best view in town and sometimes I get so enraptured by the beauty and complexity of this organ of sight that I get a little behind in my daily schedule because I just can’t stop staring.

I guess you could say that I’m an “eyeguy,” and in fact, many folks in these parts say just that.… Read the rest

A Coal Miner’s Son

Dr. Ernie Bowling is a fine optometrist and one of my best friends in the world. He is also a coal miner’s son. Like his father and grandfather before him, Ernie headed to the coal mines after high school probably convinced that he would spend the rest of his life breathing lungfuls of black dust and wandering the dimly-lit, coal-filled catacombs carved deep into the hills of West Virginia and Alabama. He labored in the mines for several years, and once he even spent time serving under the stern and watchful eye of a famous foreman, Homer Hickam, Sr.–father of Homer, Jr.… Read the rest

Keep an Eye on Potter? I Can Do That!

I fulfilled one of my week-off vows yesterday and went to see Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire. My favorite character in the movie–no real surprise here–was Mad-Eye Moody, the new professor of Defense Against the Dark Arts at Hogwarts. Needless to say, Moody’s large, bulging left eye captured my attention. Immediately I went into differential diagnosis mode: was it uncontrolled glaucoma, a case of unilateral thyroid ophthalmopathy, a retrobulbar tumor or maybe the rare and dreaded cavernous sinus fistula? I know these same questions must have been running through everyone else’s mind too (I told you it was going to be hard to relax this week!).… Read the rest

Catching the Beat of a Different Tune

Like many of you, most of my days are defined by the rhythm of work. I rise, prepare, go forth, do the deed, retreat to my lair and collapse. If you had asked me twenty years ago what my typical day would look like, I think that I would have probably painted a picture with a little more glamour and adventure. Rather than merely do a few ordinary eye exams, maybe I would also slay a dragon or two who might wander into the clinic, make a life-saving diagnosis at least every other day, and perhaps stop an armed robbery in progress at the local convenience store when I stop by to pick up a gallon of milk on the way home.… Read the rest