Eye Doctor Sermon Writing

Monday June 15, 2009

I was very blessed to be able to sleep in this morning. Jeff and Rosemary went to get their Victoria Licenses. Just so you know Jeff and Rosemary moved to Melbourne in April of this year from the United States, so they are still getting everything put together and taken care of. I got up at 8 and started some laundry. They only have a washer and it only takes 50 min. I then got a shower and got ready for the day.

Jeff picked me up and dropped Rosemary off at the house at 9:45. We then went to work. I worked pretty much all morning on my blog and e-mails. I can’t believe how many I get in 3 days! 38 messages. But it was fun to read through. I then had lunch and worked on my sermon for 30 minutes.

I then was off to the eye doctor. I have been having some problems with my left eye being cloudy and blurry. I was given medication which didn’t correct the problem to the fullest extent and after contacting the eye doctor in the United States I was told to not wait another month, but to check with an eye doctor.

It was amazing that I got in because here in Australia in order to see an eye doctor you have to have a referral from a medical doctor. Thankfully the note from my eye doctor in the USA was enough of a referral.

My vision was tested, but not with the usual machine brought up to your face and then the new lenses flipped depending on what your answers were to if it was clearer or blurrier. Instead I had these glasses put on my face that had slots in them. The eye lady would then switch in and out little lenses to see which one was better or worse. Now my eye is seeing double vision so it was hard to know if the word was clearer or not.

I then went back to see the eye doctor and he put some strange orange stuff in my eye. Upon questioning him to what he had just put in my eye, he said it was this thing to illuminate the surface of my eye. He then shined a blue light into my eye. What he saw were these little dots illuminated all over my eye. I am not sure what they are called, but they are obviously what is affecting my blurred and double vision. He said that it was just a matter of time to wait for my eye to heal because there was not really any more meds that he could recommend. So that means that I will be wearing glasses the remainder of my trip.

I then waited while they prepared the eye pressure and eye thickness test. The eye pressure test was conducted like this: The lady put some eye cleaner in my eyes. It smelled like hand sanitizer and burned my eyes. She then had this strip of paper that had some sort of gloop on it. I have no idea what that was. She then stuck this strange instrument almost into my eye. It beeped a few times and then gave a readout. She worked on both eyes and then had to get a different instrument because the readout wasn’t very good or something.

She then used a different instrument to measure the thickness of my eyes. There was this little thing that looked like a water pick and she put it right up to my eye. It felt like these waves or something were going through my eye. It was a strange feeling. She got a bit worried because the reading for both tests were different for both eyes. I told her that was probably because I had some stuff going on in my left eye. After talking to the doctor about it, I was released to pay my bill of AU $140. I haven’t converted it to USA dollars yet.

I worked on my sermon the rest of the afternoon. I didn’t get very far because we left the church at 4:15.

This evening I tried my first Meat Pie. Yummy. I don’t know what is so special about them. It tasted like stroganoff encased in a pie crust. For dessert I had a snot block (vanilla slice). While Jeff and Rosemary watched TV I worked on my paper mache. I am doing two projects – one with string and one with newspaper. Lets hope everything works out!

I have found it interesting. In the United States people watch wheel of fortune every night. Jeff and Rosemary watch Deal or no Deal. You know – taking those psychology classes has enabled me to think about people and try and figure out why they do the things they do. Its very interesting and I love analyzing people. Watch out!

So a few things about the toilet and the electricity outlets:

Toilet:

- Each toilet has two buttons on the top. One button is a half flush and the other is a full flush. Because Australian people want to be environmentally friendly and don’t want to waste water and because parts of Australia are going through a drought, they created these two buttons depending on what is put in them. So, as can be assumed, the half flush is for when you do number one. Full flush is for when you do number two. Got it?

Electricity outlet plugs:

- Instead of just having open plug outlets, each outlet has a switch above it. You have to turn it on or off before using the appliance. So like in the morning to use the hairdryer, I have to plug in my hairdryer, turn on the switch then blow dry my hair. The same is for the washer. I turn on the switch, set the washing machine, then wash my clothes. It is a very unique set up and takes some getting used to. I have only been here about a week and a half and I keep forgetting.

I guess that is about it for now. I have rambled on and on.