Chasing the Wind

First of all, many thanks for your thoughts and prayers. The short story is the Lasik was a complete success. Long story below. 🙂

Diane dropped me off for my appointment at 1:00pm yesterday and I got checked in for the procedure. They give me a complete examination all over again and take all the measurments necessary for the Lasik.

One of the machines for the custom Lasik bounces light off your retina and measure how much the light scatters to determine lower and higher order aberrations. They can correct this with custom Lasik to sharpen your vision even more that is possible with glasses or contacts. They want your pupils dilated to 6mm to do this, but they want the dilation to dissipate before the Lasik. The doctor gave me the good news – I have small pupils which will give me very sharp vision over a very large range, sort of like a small aperature on a camera. The bad news was that at 3.25mm diameter, they’d have to dilate my eyes. They used an extremely weak solution so that the effect would go away quickly, but it took forever. They measure my dilation at 4mm; dilate again. Measure at 4.85mm; dilate again. Measure at 5.25; dilate again. Measure at 5.99, dilate again before could finally take the measurements they needed. By this time I had slipped to the back of the line.

There were 3 or 4 people in front of me; the operation takes place in a glass clean room with big windows and a plasma tv so friends and family can watch. By this time, Diane was back so she’d be ready to give me a ride home, and I watched part of one procedure as the cut the protective corneal layer back and peeled away aaaaaaiiiiiieeeee…….. Take this piece of advice from me: do not watch this immediately before your surgery. Stay away. Read books with little cartoon pictures of eyeballs in them, for you do not want to imagine them doing this to your eyes.

My turn finally came at 6:30pm, and the procedure was quick. They gave me a valium which had almost -0- effect on me. Maybe it was a placebo, I don’t know. I laid down on a bench and put my head under the laser; they strapped me in, dropped some numbing drops in, flushed my eye and propped it open. Things kind of go black for a second as the doctor does the first cut (I had the laser cut instead of the microknife), then very very bright for the second laser. The doctor told me to look at the red light (since I’m missing a cornea at this point it’s very weird trying to look at *anything*), then there is this noise like a bug zapper (zap. zap. zap. zap. zap.) Then the rid light disappears, the cornea is massaged back in place, and the procedure is done. 3 minutes, maybe.

The whole time some nurse who was probably hired for comforting yet sterile hands is massaging my hand the whole time, which is very helpful. No matter how much I studied and prepared, this procedure was mildly uncomfortable and I was apprehensive. In a few more minutes, they were finished with my second eye.

I took my post-op back and Diane took me home; I was supposed to nap for 2 hours from the valium which didn’t work. I kept my eyes closed, but they felt like that time I had pink eye several years ago; my eyes would clench and tears would flow, and that lasted 3-4 hours. Apparently everybody reacts differently; Diane said she could see instantly and didn’t have any pain at all. I decided to turn in early; I had 3 different drops to put in each eye. A numbing agent for last night only; an antibiotic I take just through Monday, and an anti-inflammatory I take for 2 weeks. I have some plastic eye shields to tape to my face at night so I don’t accidentally rub my eyes; I have to take great care for the next month not to poke myself in the eye with something.

This morning, the pain is gone. My left eye feels perfect; my right eye has some haze to it and a slight grit feel like maybe I just put in a dirty contact. I had an early checkup and the doctor says that’s just due to the swelling and should disappear in a few days. Then he gave me an eye test.

I have 20/15 in my left eye. I have 20/10 in my right. Much, much better than “perfect vision.” Now that the swelling has gone down, I think I can see the individual veins in the leaves on a tree. If there was a copyright notice on the leaf, I’d be able to read that, too. I can read 6″ in front of my face, too, so I won’t need reading glasses for years and years.

I thank God for guiding the doctor’s hands and for blessing me with my new vision. I also want to thank each and every one of you for your prayers; I think when I was nervous I could feel each and every one of your prayers. And I want to thank my sweetheart Diane for the fabulous care the last 24 hours – she was my nurse, taxi, my cook, my friend and took excellent care of me. I am blessed to have her in my life again.

If you’re considering Lasik (I don’t care how old this post gets, even if you want to ask a year from now), feel free to ask about my experience, I’ll be happy to answer any question you might have. And yes, it was worth it. 🙂