Lated update: he is in recovery right now. Chris (dad) ended up coming back here to the hospital as things got stressful here. He now has a port and a feeding tube. They were not able to do that other procedure as there was no clear boundaries and if they would have pushed thru they ran too high of a risk hitting a major vessel per say and he would die on the table. So, with that said he will be back in surgery next week to place a permanent shunt. Keep up the prayers. He needs some major miracles. Seems like all odds are against him and oh...his vocal chords are weak and they don't know for sure if he will speak or swallow again. Only time will tell. Generally it takes 3-6 months to get that back in other cases in other grades of this tumor. They don't have statics on a grade 3. Dear God, I feel like we are writing history here. Let's just pray that everything that they are doing is right and that other kids who get this will survive like our Bradley. Thanks:) Wish i just had better news for once...hopefully at the end of this we will. I am sure there is alot of the medical terminology that neither 'mom or dad' completely understand, they are not in the medical field.....as long as the Dr. does, that is what counts.

My lenses were over and above what my insurance would pay, too, in order to correct for severe astigmatism as well as my very serious myopia. My doctor was genius.....he corrected one eye just a wee bit less than perfect, which allows me to see near and far; I can read all but the tiniest print without readers and even apply my makeup! There is no way that I could be happier with the results. Even after two years, I still find myself groping for my glasses when I wake up in the morning, lol. The surgery was such a blessing for me. One thing that I had to deal with, especially for the first several months, was uncomfortable dryness. I was encouraged to use a gloppy gel at night, and a couple of different kinds of drops during the day. I still use lubricating drops a couple of times a day.

My mom is 80 years old and is now going to a Skilled Nursing Unit for 10-14 days. She will spend one more night in the hospital. I talked to the surgeon yesterday and come to find out she did not have a twisted intestine but a tumor that was blocking the intestine. The surgeon felt like it was a cancerous tumor and that he got it all and that they are still waiting on pathology. My stepdad showed up at the hospital this morning prepared to take her home, but he was sent back home. Today I have been on the phone a lot with the case manager, a lady from the Skilled Nursing Unit and my step dad. My step dad thinks I am trying to run their lives. Somehow I ended up as the contact person instead of him and that has made him mad. I'm looking out for my mom though, not if I can please him.

"In college, my dominant eye became nearsighted while the other remained normal. The images were not "merged" as you describe because (as an example) in a large lecture hall, I couldn't read what the profs would write." Of course the images weren't merged properly because you didn't have clear vision in both eyes. Once you got your glasses with correction for your right eye, then the images from your right eye merged with the images from your normal, uncorrected, left eye. With contacts or IOLs "set" for monovision, both eyes see correctly for the distance for which they are corrected, then both of those images are merged by your brain. "I still wear glasses to this day and with different corrections (as I understand is not unusual) in each." Yes, I think it's probably more common for people to have differing corrections for their two eyes than for the two eyes to need the exact same correction. I used to work with someone who wore contacts with the same prescription for each eye, and he never had to worry about making sure he got each lens in the right chamber of the soaking solution. I've worn "hard" contacts since the early 1970s, and when RGP lenses (rigid gas permeable) lenses came out in 1979 I was switched to those, and have had RGPs ever since. My contacts have always had an almost-imperceptible dot near the edge of the right lens, so you can easily tell which is which. "One thing to consider is that if one's distance vision is only seen through one eye, then depth of field is lost." And that's exactly what the problem was that night when I was driving home with monovision contacts. And because I cannot say with absolute certainty that I will never, ever, be in a situation again when vision from only one of my eyes will be enough to serve the need/purpose at hand, I will never, ever, have my vision correction set as monovision.