Friday 31 January 2014

Health Issues

My eyesight has been deteriorating at an alarming rate so I went to see my eye doctor. Well the bad news is that I have cataracts and they have to be removed. The good news is that it's a relatively simple procedure. The bad news is that any medical procedure is bad news. The best news would be to not have to endure any procedure. But, once again, real life throws us some curve balls and we have to adapt. Could be a lot worse so I'm thankful it's just cataracts and not, say, cancer or something worse.

Needless to say, all the books I ordered like Cholesterol Clarity, Death by Food Pyramid, and Dr. Cate Shanahan's and Dr. Tim Noakes' books I've lent to my sister to read, as my eyes are bothering me too much at the moment.

And, of course, not much posting here.

13 comments:

  1. Good luck and get well soon! My mom had the same surgery done and it was a breeze.

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  2. May EVERYTHING be better with you soon, H! my very best wishes....

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  3. Good luck, Hurf!
    I never met anyone who was not happy about the cataract surgery results. Just, please, do not skip any recovery recommendations!

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  4. Hi Horf

    It was great to hear from you ... although sorry to hear about your eyes.

    Just follow Doctors orders and advice as the saying goes. I know several who have had the 'op' done in the UK and everything has gone well.

    Thinking of you and sending positive thoughts

    All the best Jan, (Eddie and the low carb team)

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    1. Thanks so much for the support. Much appreciated!

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  5. I hope you are doing fine after your surgery. I think you worry about Ukraine at the moment, as I do. I have relatives there in Odessa. At least that criminal Yanukovitch is out of power now.

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    1. Thank you Galina and my surgery is scheduled for the end of April. I have relatives in Kyiv, Lviv, Rryvyj Rih, Drohobych and other areas in western Ukraine. Something that I was unaware of is that the Crimean Tatars were persecuted by the Russians as well and now are clashing with pro-Russians in the Crimea. It seems Stalin got rid of them by starving them and exporting them (the word used was resettlement) and the rest of them fled. Once Ukraine declared independence they returned to their homelands. I agree, it is best with Yanukovych gone.

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  6. Yes, Tatars were persecuted as well, they were force-ordered to move from their native land, it happened with some other nations in Soviet Union, now there are 10% of population of Crimea are Tatars.
    from the Wiki's about Soviet deportations http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soviet_deportations

    "Looking at the entire period of Stalin's rule, one can list: Poles (1939–1941 and 1944–1945), Romanians (1941 and 1944–1953), Lithuanians, Latvians, Estonians (1941 and 1945–1949), Volga Germans (1941–1945), Ingrian Finns (1929–1931 and 1935–1939), Finnish people in Karelia (1940–1941, 1944), Crimean Tatars, Crimean Greeks(1944) and Caucasus Greeks (1949-50),[12] Kalmyks, Balkars, Karachays, Meskhetian Turks, Karapapaks, Far East Koreans (1937), Chechens and Ingushs (1944). Shortly before, during and immediately after World War II, Stalin conducted a series of deportations on a huge scale which profoundly affected the ethnic map of the Soviet Union.[2] It is estimated that between 1941 and 1949 nearly 3.3 million were deported to Siberia and the Central Asian republics.[13] By some estimates up to 43% of the resettled population died of diseases and malnutrition.[14]"

    Every family I know of has a tragic chapter in a family history from the Stalin time regardless of their nationality, Russians are not an exception, among Russians well-off social-economic groups were prosecuted - not even really wealthy, but even hard working people working in agriculture, as it happened in my family. My husband's father spent 10 years in Siberia labor camp.
    I guess the Russian people in Crimea who oppose the changes of power in Ukraine do so not because they approve of Yanukovitch, but because they think they would loose the autonomy and the opportunity to use Russian language as the official language in Crimea which is the case right now. Revolutions are messy, and to live through big changes is not easy. Probably some of Russian-speaking population worry about the possibility of anty-Russian extremism.

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    2. Horf,
      I think Ukrainians who couldn't use their language could relate to the situation the people in Crimea found themselves now. In Crimea 97% population speaks Russian , they are even not Ukrainians ethnically, unlike people in Kharkov (North-East Ukraine), for example. Crimea was given to Ukraine by Khrushev quite recently to please his Ukrainian wife, so the population there could be in the same situation as people in Lviv who were forced to use Russian language instead of their native one when Soviet Union took that land under its rule.
      I am not Putin's fan by all means, I disagree with his policy in general, he is a very dangerous person. I am afraid of the near war situation in Ukraine now, and personally, I think that `a war is worse than any language disagreements. My mom went to Ukrainian school(it was a choice) when her family used to live in Kiev because her father thought it was the right thing to do , even though we are ethnically Russians. I don't think me and you look so differently at things after all.
      Sorry, if I said something what made you upset.

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