I have been wearing glasses since I was seven years old. Add that to being fairly overweight and it made me a very unpopular person when I was growing up. I have recently lost over one hundred pounds and I thought that I deserved to book an appointment with a LASIK doctor to see what could be done about me wearing glasses.

The LASIK eye exam went very well and he told me that I would be a perfect candidate for the surgery. He pretty much guaranteed me that the surgery would work and I decided to go home and have a serious talk with my husband about it.

My husband said that if I wanted to have the LASIK laser eye surgery than I should. He felt that I had earned it and that if it was what I really wanted than I should go ahead. I think the loss of my glasses will complete the new me, so I went ahead and booked in for surgery.

I have always wanted to travel in Europe. I have a friend who spends a good part of the year in Italy and Greece and I have always wanted to go with her. It seemed, every time I planned on going, that I was held back by family obligations or a lack of funds.

I decided that I was not going to let anything get in my way of going last winter, as I heard about the great results of my friend getting cosmetic surgery abroad. There was definitely some potential for me, as there is so many things about my appearance that I would like to change.

I booked my tickets and my appointment with the plastic surgeon and I was on my way. The trip meant so much more to me than I can even describe in words. I had the best time of my life and I saw things that I could have only ever dreamed of seeing. It was so great that I plan to go back next year.

I find that as I get older my body aches more and more.  It could be due to my job which involves a lot of physical labor, or it could just be the sports injuries I suffered in my youth.  Needless to say, I would rather function in a world of minimum pain, and I would do almost anything to keep it that way.

What I have been doing lately is visiting the local masseuse.  She has been instrumental in making sure that the pain of living is kept to a minimum, and she is worth every penny.  Each time that I go there I leave feeling refreshed.

But sometimes my schedule is too busy, and I just don’t have time to make it down there.  But thanks to a book that I picked up at the library, I have learned some self massage techniques that help to minimize the pain in between visits.

I was teaching a class on natural cellular defense and I had a student who was particularly keen on the subject. She seemed to know the answers to all of the questions I asked and I knew that se was either going to be someone who listened and did really well in the class or someone who would drive me crazy, thinking that she knew more on the subject than I did.

I decided to ask her to stay after class and find out which one it was going to be. I found out why she knew so much on the subject and it really surprised me. She was a distributor of liquid Zeolite and, to obtain higher sales, she immersed herself in everything about it in order to be able to answer and questions potential customers may have.

I was actually really impressed that she had taken the initiative to learn about it, rather than just try to scam people into buying it. In fact, I think I am now one of her best customers.

What I was going to medical school I decided that I wanted to specialize in sleeping disorders.  Many members of my family suffer from sleep apnea and I knew it was something that I wanted to research into more.  During that time I wanted to see if I could make a sleep apnea machine that was better than the ones my family is at home.

I contacted a CPAP supply company to get all the parts that I would need to build my own machine and experiment a little bit on what would work and what would not.  I purchased the parts and some extras so that I could make a machine that had improvements over what was currently on the market.

I did end up building a CPAP machine that worked just fine and I had my sister try it out and she thought it was great.  I took it before the board to see if I could get a patent on it but is very depressing to find out that they could not mass-produce these machines as it would cost them about four times more than what it costs them to make the ones they make now.

Oh well, it was worth a try, right?

Mr. Rogers used to sing a little ditty he wrote: “Everything grows together, because you’re all one piece. Your ears grow as the rest of your grows because you’re all one piece.” Then it goes on to name one more piece that grows, in this cumulative song.

This point was brought home to me recently when I injured my knee and started having pain in my hip. I didn’t really understand it, but my chiropractor does, and so I’m in good hands. I’m still hoping I won’t need any “bionic” replacements any time soon.

A friend in Anaheim, however, was telling me on Skype a month ago that she was in so much pain she could hardly think straight some days due to knee and hip pain. While we were chatting, I searched online for hip and knee replacements in Orange County. She emailed me today that she’s already had surgery and has started therapy. I told her I could now introduce her as “My friend, the bionic woman.”

I have a cousin with a really embarrassing problem, excessive sweating. The poor girl is beyond beautiful but she sweats all the time no matter what she wears or does.

It’s been a problem since her early teens and she’s tried so many things to fix it over the years but nothing much ever worked until recently.

You might have heard of Botox, probably in relation to fixing wrinkles in old ladies, and lip injections for the stars, right? Well, there is another way to use it.

When it comes to botox hyperhidrosis can be fixed.

My cousin used a local doctor who specializes in botox treatments and has finally gotten relief from the embarrassment of this disorder. She sometimes had to change her clothing every three hours because she would soak her shirt.

Botox attaches to the nerves that produce sweat and can reduce it up to eighty percent according to her doctor! It has certainly made my cousin’s life easier.

I will admit that I have a long way to go when it comes to understanding the Internet. I have been trying though and I think that I have learned a lot in a short time. I have even started some of my own websites. I am not just winging it, as my few sites are about things that I have at least a little knowledge about.

The latest thing I did was start my own health forum. It is something that everyone always needs to talk about and I think a forum is a great place to have your questions answered if you are too scared to talk to your doctor about it. Chances are that there is someone out there that knows exactly what you are going through.

It has gone over very well and I have even learned a lot from it. I have also made some friends and I know I would feel comfortable talking to anyone on my forum about anything.

I can remember the old days of getting insurance quotes and I realize now that it was a lot harder back in those days.  There was just so much paperwork that you needed to do without any guarantee of approval.

What made it worse is that you had to wait.  And wait some more.  In fact, by today’s standards, waiting for a California Medicare Supplement quote would have been unacceptable.  In fact, if it was still like that, there would be public outrage.

But now, with the dawning of the Internet, we no longer have to wait anymore.  Thankfully, we can just apply online and get instant gratification with a “yes” or a “no”.  No more waiting and no more patience required.

Speaking of that, I should probably get an insurance quote or two - it is almost time for me to renew.

I was doing some research for a high school health class on drug rehabilitation. I learned so much during that research about a topic that I had really known very little of. I knew that there were many people in the class that dealt with these realities on an everyday basis and I suddenly understood a little bit more about who they were.

In fact, when I asked one of my classmates where he got his excellent drug rehab info, he told me that he got it at the facility that he had stayed at the summer before. We talked about his addictions well into the night and it was like I had a window into a life that I previously knew nothing about.

I was sorry that he had gone through that and even more sorry that I had judged him before getting to know him. We became great friends and, though he still sometimes struggles with temptation, he said that I have done so much for him by being accepting and being an ear when he needs it. I got so much more out of that class than I had ever hoped for.