Model Citizen : The long and winding road.

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11/02/2006

The long and winding road.

I read a lot.
I read on average about 25 novels a year, and that's just at work.
I dont get that much time at home to read because of the kids, but when I do I usually read Graphic Novels. I love Frank Miller and Allan Moore, two writers I grew up with, but recently I've been trying to finish my collection of the Los Bros Hernandez Love & Rockets series.

Love & Rockets

It's a set of 20 books, and so far I'm up to 9 with 10 and 11 on order with Amazon.

Anyway, as started I read a lot. I've read the complete works of John leCarre, who was a bit depressing for me in the end, I can only remember one or two of his books even coming close to happy endings. Frederick Forsyth, who is called "The Master Storyteller" and for good reason. Tolkien, well what can you say about him? What i will say though is I read Lord Of The Rings again recently and realised the films were so good they are the nearest experience to a book I've come across. I've read Sci-Fi too, with Douglas Adams, Frank Herbert and Isaac Asimov. i've also read biographies, with Michael Caine's "What's It All About" being my favourite.
Crime, I read Ian Rankin's Rebus novels and also Elizabeth George's Lynley series. I wrote to George after seeing one of the BBC's dramatisations. I thought it was so poor I told her I was trying to forget it....for my troubles she sent me a signed photo!
recently I visited Hay-On-Wye, the book town, and yes, every other shop is a book shop!? Whilst I was there I picked up an almost complete Tom Clancy collection.
Tom Clancy

I'd started reading the Jack Ryan novels, though I really enjoyed the John Clarke book too.

Jack Ryan is the character from the films "Hunt For Red October", "Patriot games", "Clear & Present Danger" and "Sum Of All Fears". All excellent films, but read the books for the real thrill.

Whilst reading these books I started to think about Ryans wife Caroline, a prominent eye surgeon. I read about how she did'nt drink coffee as it could give slight tremors to the hands which were no good in her line of work, and also a great tip for artisits wanting a steady hand, I also read about the satisfaction of working on a patient and seeing there face when they realised they could see again....and that got me thinking.

My wife Nicky has been wearing glasses ever since we met 17 years ago. She's worried a lot over the years about the state of her eyes, and weather they're getting worse or not. Anyway, on the sly i started looking into Laser Eye Surgery.

Optical Express

It stated it started at around £395 per eye, and you could have a free consultation at one of there many clinics around the country. Anyway I finally talked the idea through with Nicky and even though she was very worried about it all she agreed to go to our nearest clinic in Cardiff. First thing, price, apparently the worse your eyes, the higher the price, so the starting price doubled for Nicky to £795 per eye.
Then there's a choice of treatments.

The best way I can think of to describe what they do is this. Imagine your eye as a ball, if you wear glasses your eye is probably slightly out of shape, say, like an egg. What they do is put the shape back again. There are 3 ways to do this. The first is to actually cut a slice off the eye to make it the right shape....sounds guesome, but for the same price Nicky could have LasTek where there's no cutting involved but basically they remould the shape. Other than that there's a really expensive treatment called WavTek which only benefits some people who dont get 20/20 vision with LasTek, it also can give better night vision.
I'm writing all this because as Nicky started to look into all this there seemed to be two types of people. The first was the ignorant who all seemed to have an opinion based on something they'd heard from somewhere, and that was it's supposed to be bad that! The second was the person who had had it done or knew someone who had, and there response was unanimous, why did'nt I get it done sooner!

So, after the consultation I told Nicky to go for it and I'd pay (there go all my savings for Wonderfest next year), but this had to be done. So off to Birmingham which was the nearest clinic to be able to do the operation in half term.
I got to say when Nicky was through it did sound a bit guesome what they did, but as each eye only took about 1 min to do I figure 2 mins hardship for a lifetime of sight is'nt a bad swap. Anyway, as soon as the operation was finished Nicky asked for her glasses, only to be told they'd been put away, it was then that she realised she could see, better than she could with them on! And her eyesight is supposed to now improve over the coming week.
So, if you are even contemplating this sort of treatment, I'd go for a free consultation. Yes, someone will touch your eye, yes it will hurt, but no it only lasts seconds and your eyes will get better.