I now live in Bristol rather than Devon. When I was living in Devon I would have a yearly check-up with the doctor that performed the cross linking. When I first moved to Bristol I was going back to Devon to see the same doctor though this has become a little impractical. So, got a referral up in Bristol. Which worked out well as the referral was to an NHS doctor so doesn’t cost me anything now!

Basically my last eye check-up at the hospital was around the start of January 2012. My eyes had remained unchanged. I had the operation only in my left eye, as the Keratoconus hasn’t really taken hold at all in my right eye. I always thought I didn’t have it at all in the right. Though on my last check the doctor said I do, just in the very very very early stages. Which, perhaps it has always been like, as I recall when I had my first consultation before the cross linking the Doctor told me you could say from what you see it has developed in the right eye but because it’s so early it could be something else. Think it’s stayed the same since I’ve known about the condition in the right eye and it’s simply a matter of opinion whether I have it yet in the right!

I was getting my eyes checked yearly in Devon. The eye hospital in Bristol have arranged checks every six months, think this is just a difference in opinion (ah Keratoconus, so much opinion, so few facts, it’s a frustrating condition!) as to how much they need checking. Personally I’m happier to get them checked more often as just more likely to catch anything I guess! The optician I was seeing (not going back) who clearly didn’t have a clue about the condition told me I could just get my eyes checked every two years! Personally I’d not leave them two years, so much could happen in that amount of time!

Having said that will still go to the opticians (a different one of course!), but still unsure how beneficial this is. I guess it is as the check-up seems something different than what the eye hospital does. At the eye hospital they get me to read letters on a chart briefly then use the scary wheel turning light machine and finally have a chat with me about it all. Opticians seem to do lots of stuff with different lenses and what not, which is (I’m guessing) maybe pointless as I don’t wear my glasses anyway, find them annoying and I seem to get by just fine without them. But, still it’s another eye check and I like to get them checked as much as I can! I think that’s important as it’s such a random condition, Keratoconus. It can go unchanged for years then suddenly rapidly change a lo in a short space of timet. So probably worth doing too!

Anyway, currently just watching the right eye to see if Keratoconus takes hold in that eye, and the left to make sure the cross linking keeps working! The Cross Linking to keep working for ten years. My biggest struggle at the moment is to stop rubbing my eyes! Was rubbing them an awful lot, but I have eye drops now but still difficult to fight the urge not to rub my eyes, frequently just not possible! Just do it without thinking. But trying not to! As most will know with Keratoconus, it’s always best to try and avoid rubbing eyes. Excessive rubbing has been linked to the condition getting worse.

So two and a half years on I’m still very glad I personally went through with the cross linking treatment. If you have Keratoconus I’d certainly talk to an eye doctor who knows about the condition to see if it could help you. Unsure if you can get it on the NHS yet, really hope so. Seems you can get treatment at some NHS hospitals. If you can’t for some reason, I’d recommend the guy I went through (crossing linking wasn’t on the NHS at all when I had it done), Dr Habib: http://www.visionplymouth.com/ he is a very good doctor.

Check out more of my blog entries’ about my cross linking experiences by clicking here!

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I think we all surprised ourselves by just how big it was. Even conservative estimates seemed to be around the half a million mark for attendance. But other estimates have been around the 750,000 mark. It was overwhelmingly a peaceful march, which the media, to be fair, always point out, but still give almost their entire coverage to the violence that occurred… And even when they do talk about the march they attempt to make out it was a few invested interest groups that marched. This of course was bollocks, there was a mass mix of different people there. These spending cuts will effect us all, and I think the grim reality is seeping into the minds of the majority of people now. What Saturday showed was that, firstly the trade union movement while much smaller then it was in the 70s  is still a force in this country and secondarily a lot of people care enough about the cuts to March in Central London.

The question on the news was, ‘will this march make a difference’ on it’s own of course not. If this is all we do then we will lose. But, if this march gave people the confidence to do more, showed us that most people agree with us and they continue to fight and resist the cuts then we can win! Workers of the world unite, we have nothing to lose but our chains!

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It is imperative that we save the NHS, join the march on the 26th of March in London, there are free buses going from all over the place. For more information click here. Also,  get involved in the Anti Cuts Alliances all over the county, click here to find out what’s happening nationally as well as in your local area. If we don’t fight, we defiantly can’t win!

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It’s planned to be the big one, so if you can get there, do! There are loads of FREE coaches going. From Bristol, where I am going from, there are 40 alone at present, so no excuses :-p!

These cuts effect us all and we must fight them, else they’ll win and roll back people living standards. The Rich caused this crisis, so why are we paying? Make the tax dodging greedy rich pay instead!

For more information visit this web site

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Proportional Representation would have been the best one, of course. Well, better, hardly democracy because after all we live in a Capitalist system and democracy isn’t compatible with that. It’s strange how people can think we live in a democracy when we have little of the choices that actually matter. We have no democratic control over our working lives, unless you’re rich, you can only sell yourself for a fraction of what you make and be dictated to. Sure you can start your own business but that takes a lot of time and money which most of us don’t have. You don’t have the freedom to distribute your opinion on a wide scale unless you’re rich and can afford to own a newspaper or TV channel. And even the supposed choices we have, do we? Who get into power time and time again? Parties that are totally out of sync with public opinion, who are rich men, on the most part, who don’t have the majorities interests at heart. Just take the cabinet. Their mostly multi millionaires. Look at the cuts, which ever way you look at them the working and middle classes are hit the worst and the rich get corporation tax cuts and bailouts. We must fight for a new workers party, and break free from the cycle of voting for the lesser of two evils…

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The bankers caused this crisis yet we pay for it, with cuts to our services, pay and jobs.  Everyone will suffer (unless you’re a banker) and many many will die, let’s not mince words after all that is the grim reality of this all. All in the name of profit and keeping a live a outdated system that serves no one but the rich of our society.

Allowing this to continue is a crime, we can change things if we organise. The rich need us, we don’t need them, like they pretend we do. They are and do what they do because we allow them to. If we all just said ‘no’ who would do all the work to produce things and services that make them the profit? Huge profits I might add and in return give us a fraction of those profits in wages when it’s us that does all the work!

They know this, which is why they must keep such a tight reign on the media to spread their lies. But people aren’t stupid, people know it’s bollox what they read in the paper but feel powerless to do anything. But it’s simply not true, we have the power, all they have is the piles of money, without workers to make them their vast profits they are powerless to control us, this needs to be remembered!

We have nothing to lose my friends, nothing but our chains!

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Came across these little parodies that amused me from Proper Tidy Blog promoting the UK Uncut Web site. They illustrate how the rich get away with avoiding billions a year in tax while us ordinary people have our wages, services and stanards of living cut. The rich caused this crisis yet the poor pay, as usual, and the rich get ever richer! The posters here state 25 Billion but the total in lost tax when including evasion is more like 120 Billion now! For a break down click here.

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As many of you will have heard yesterday the Police launched a new Crime Mapping Web App, read up here if you haven’t. Well this is the anti social map for round my way. When I first looked at it I thought bugger that looks bad. But, when comparing it to other areas of Bristol it really isn’t bad at all…

Not sure I see the point of it other then it’s mildly fun to take a gander at and perhaps to scare people. But I suppose you got to keep’em scared to keep’em down! It’s the way they can keep control. I think most people can agree the system we live under is deeply unfair but stop at the point of trying to change it because they have been ground down, demoralised to such a point they don’t see a way of changing it. Which of course isn’t true, we can if we organise! History has shown us time and time again we can change things, we must change things!

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