April 26, 2008

After we crossed the raging river, we finally made it to the church and enjoyed the praise and worship. Being the Christmas season many churches were having celebrations. A common part of this celebration is a Christmas tree with candles all over it that respected elders and visitors are invited to light. For the first time on the trip, our whole team was invited to light a candle which was a big honour.

The problem was, the candles were perched precariously close to paper streamers (substituting for tinsel) and the pine needles.

Quite a few pine needles went up in flames.. It provided a hilarious distraction during the service.

Then they performed an even bigger honour. They got us all up on stage and gave us a handwoven scarf using the traditional village pattern that took one week each to weave. It is basically their version of the keys to the city and also means ‘remember us forever.’

USAeyes is a non profit website, a patient advocate in the field of eye surgery that has recently released the results of large survey of patients who have undertaken Lasik surgery.

Lasik is a form of laser eye surgery.

Specifically, they wanted to know the effects that the surgery has had on the quality of life of the patients. The Lasik results are very good. An incredible 96% of respondents reported that their vision was better than it was previously.

A tiny 2% report post surgery complications that are frequent or problematic but 22% of these would do the procedure again.

USAeyes is operated by the Council for Refractive Surgery Quality Assurance, an organization built to certify refractive surgeons based on the results of surgery performed.

Currently only 250 or so doctors in the United States have been certified.