MEDICAL MATTERS

[David Whipp]

Sue, a colleague has had the same problem a while ago; it was virtually impossible for her to function. All sorted now though. Hope feeling better soon.

[Sue]

I certainly know how she felt.

[Stanley]

Looks as though I was lucky again Sue.... Speaking of that, I had mail from a colleague this morning wishing me well. Turns out he had the same thing four years ago but his was a failure due to scarring of the retina. Never knew he was blind in one eye. Someone somewhere is looking after me! (Improvement continues....)

[Stanley]

See THIS for the latest news of the Ebola outbreak in Africa. The WHO is getting worried about it. Cameron reinforces the message that we need to address the oncoming failure of antibiotics. Problem is of course that there isn't as much money in these as in say cancer drugs.
On a personal front, the gas bubble in my eye, which looks like a segment of a dark circle to me, is shrinking gradually and is down to about 20% of my vision when looking straight forward. What I can see is still slightly distorted but that could be the effects of the bubble and the two sets of powerful eye drops I still have to use. I finish the worst of them, the Mydrilate, on Friday and it will be interesting to see what the effect of that is. This is the eye drop they put in your eye to dilate the pupil and flatten the lens when they need to look inside your eye, it takes about 12 hours to wear off and I use it twice a day. So I'm expecting more improvement on Saturday! It's all looking good and I feel very privileged, it is a lottery or so they tell me....
The appointments system at BGH is working well, I got a letter yesterday giving me a 3PM appointment with Mr David, the surgeon, on the 15th of August.

[Nolic]

The challenges facing antibiotics has won the Longitude Prize. http://www.nesta.org.uk/blog/and-winner-is-antibioticsNolic

[Stanley]

Good to see Comrade. There are encouraging signs that, at last, the situation is being taken seriously. I wish the researchers well!

[Stanley]

Only one more day of the savage eye drops. Mind you, they don't half clear your sinuses out!

[Moh]

Re:- Stanley's remark about BGH's appointment system - I had an appointment to see Mr Sarin, the orthopedic surgeon, for a check up for my hip in 24th July at 9.15am, this was changed a few weeks later to Blackburn on 24th July at 2.30pm. Now it is Blackburn on July 16th at 9.50am. - apparently Mr Sarin is not holding clinics at BGH any more!!

[Stanley]

Hard luck Moh... I think I may have been lucky with Ward Six. So far, apart from one glitch when the time was changed and we weren't told, no problems and no long waits.
A fortnight today since the retinal attachment. From a complete blank to 80% vision. I'm reminded of Hartley and the 'pesky scientists', he was wrong of course, it's a miracle! There will be more improvement as the gas bubble shrinks and I look forward to it. Actually, the bubble is a pain in the neck because it is almost opaque and interferes with left eye vision but I know I must be patient!

[Stanley]

Yippee! I finished the savage Mydrilate eye drops last night. It's two weeks since the op and the gas bubble is shrinking fast. Looking straight forward it only obscures about 10% of my vision. Still distorted but improving every day. I have some little tests I apply each day like looking across the back street to see if I can see the yellow number on the opposite house. I can see the colour now, just! A miracle when I look back three weeks....

[Stanley]

My gas bubble is shrinking fast. As it gets smaller it becomes even more of a magnifying lens and I think is causing the distortion in the far better vision I have now. Time will tell but all the signs are that it's going to be fine. I could live with it as it is now but after all, it's only 17 days since the operation and I have been told it improves over about three months. A miracle....

[Tizer]

Amazing when you consider how fast the deterioration was before the op. It's good you got immediate attention.

[Stanley]

Dead right Tiz. I never expected it to be this fast. Vision is fine, gas bubble smaller still and only flaw is loss of rectilinear definition but I think that is something to do with the gas bubble, refraction?

[Tizer]

It could be due to distortion by the gas bubble but will probably become normal again in the sense that your brain will learn to allow for it. After all, what we `see' is what our brain learns to interpret, and likewise when scientists use image analysis the computer has to be taught what it's seeing. Your brain knows that a square box has parallel sides and four right angles but at the moment it's getting a different signal from the eye, so it has to re-learn to accept the new signal instead of insisting it wants the old one.

[Stanley]

You could be right Tiz. I was a bit worried in case the eye would 'spoil' or at least, detract from, today's adventure but it is OK. Timing just right. Gas bubble is tiny now and distortion isn't too bad. Another plus for the surgeons getting me on the table quickly. I get the feeling I am very lucky.... (But then I remember the bloke who said that the harder he worked, the better his luck became.... How much of the 'luck' is due to good diet and following instructions to the letter?)

[Tizer]

I heard somebody on the radio yesterday say "You make your own luck". That's the sort of response that comes to my mind when people tell Mrs Tiz and I that we were lucky to have our own successful business or that we're lucky to have stayed married for 40 years!

[Stanley]

Snap Tiz! I remember a man telling me one day I was lucky to have finished paying the bank loan to buy Hey Farm! I asked him where he was when I was tramming up and down the rod doing illegal hours... His card was marked!
Gas bubble vanished yesterday and I took my green warning band off. Clear vision in the eye but with some distortion and double vision. I shall keep up with the drops and wait for further developments. Only 20 days since the operation after all. Onward and Upward! Excelsior!!

[Tizer]

Talking of vision...
Brain fills gaps to produce a likely picture
Press release from Radboud University, Nijmegen, 27 June 2014
Researchers at Radboud University use visual illusions to demonstrate to what extent the brain interprets visual signals. They were surprised to discover that active interpretation occurs early on in signal processing. In other words, we see not only with our eyes, but with our brain, too. The results are illustrated, for example, by the visual illusion on the left of the graphic shown below: we see a triangle that in fact is not there. The triangle is only suggested because of the way the ‘Pac-Man’ shapes are positioned; there appears to be a light-grey triangle on top of three black circles.

How does the brain do that? Using magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), they discovered that the triangle – although non-existent – activates the primary visual brain cortex. This is the first area in the cortex to deal with a signal from the eyes. The primary visual brain cortex is normally regarded as the area where eye signals are merely processed, but that has now been refuted by these results.

Recent theories assume that the brain does not simply process or filter external information, but actively interprets it. In the example described above, the brain decides it is more likely that a triangle would be on top of black circles than that three such circles, each with a bite taken out, would by coincidence point in a particular direction. After all, when we look around, we see triangles and circles more often than Pac-Man shapes. Furthermore, objects very often lie on top of other things; just think of the books and piles of paper on your desk. The imaginary triangle is a feasible explanation for the bites taken out of the circles; the brain ‘understands’ they are ‘merely’ partly covered black circles.

The researchers also noticed that whenever the Pac-Man shapes do not form a triangle, more brain activity is required. In the image on the right below, we see that the three Pac-Man shapes ‘underneath’ the triangle cause little brain activity (coloured blue), but the separate Pac-Man on the right causes more activity. This also fits in with the theory that perception is a question of interpretation: if something is easy to explain, less brain activity is needed to process that information, compared to when something is unexpected or difficult to account for – as in the diagram on the left.
http://www.ru.nl/english/university/vm/ ... ills-gaps/

[Stanley]

I've always said that the brain has a lot to do with what you see. My optician told me that this wasn't so but I don't believe her! When the right eye is dominating and spoiling my overall vision I shut it for a second and the left eye takes over and improves the image even when the right eye is open again. You soon learn these tricks..... Right eye vision very clear but still has aberrations and sees smaller than the left.... Very tall people with tiny heads!

[Tizer]

My optician told me that this wasn't so but I don't believe her!

I wouldn't believe her either. Without our brain our eyes might `see' but how would we know what it was they were seeing?

[Stanley]

For a kick off, the eye sees everything in reverse, I am sure of that because the gas bubble was always at the bottom and the start of the retinal tear was at seven o'clock in my eye but was actually at two o'clock. Yet my brain sees everything the 'right' way up. Or is it all an illusion, is up actually down? I seem to remember that there are some people who see upside down but as they have never known any different they function normally... Bit of a puzzle isn't it!

[Tizer]

When you put an electronic image on your computer the digital file has to be `rendered' on the screen (originally we would have described it as `printing to the screen'). It could be rendered upside down or right way up, it all depends on what the software tells it to do. Same with the eye and brain. The eye's lens captures an image on the retina which is then converted to an electrical signal and transmitted through the optic nerve to the brain. There the signal is converted to something we can use to define our position in space and analyse our surroundings. The question is how does the brain do the rendering bit - after all, we don't seem to have a screen in our head. I would guess the answer is that the captured image data is never rendered back to an image even though we think we can `see' images `in our head'. Instead our brain is forever comparing data and we learn to interpret it in a way that fits our external experiences.

[Stanley]

I watched Prof Mosley cutting a brain in half on BBC4 last night and telling us about the number of neurones and connections. Good job we have plenty! I'm spending as much time as possible without glasses to give my brain a better chance of retraining.... Rectilinear vision is improving slowly, I look square on at the front of the house and note whether the door and window jambs are parallel!

[Stanley]

Yet again, a REPORT tells us that exercise is good for you, this time in warding off Dementia. What amazes me is the minuscule amount of exercise they recommend to gain an improvement. If one hour of gentle exercise a week is more than most people take, how sedentary are their lives? According to these figures, my 10 hours minimum out walking in the open air is definitely above average.
This raises another question in my mind that I have voiced before. I look at the number of young people, particularly the boys, who have stick insect arms and legs. I've always said that young people should spend at least five years after school leaving working like a horse and eating like one. This puts a bottom into their physical capacity that will serve them well all their lives. When the nurse was fitting my elastic stockings before my operation three weeks ago she ran her hand over my lower leg and told me I had beautiful calf muscles. I told her I put it down to lots of long distance cycling as a lad and years of hard active work. I worry about the young......

[Moh]

Got discharged from the eye clinic, hope I get discharged from the fracture clinic on Weds. Just have to order some new reading glasses now.