I Can See Clearly Now

For Manda:

I went in yesterday for Lasik and, let me tell you, it was no picnic. It also wasn't as bad as I'd imagined it could be.

11:15am I got to the office a little before my 11:15 appointment time yesterday morning. There I sat in the waiting room, watching through the observation windows as 3 people before me had their procedures performed. J got a little squeamish, but I was fine, just a little nervous.

12:00pm By the time they called me back it was almost noon, so I started to get really nervous. The doctor came in and put in my Punctal Plugs and I was quickly herded off to another waiting area with two woman sitting nervously in sugical hats and booties. The assistant plopped me down beside them, gave me my little blue booties, stupid hat, and my xanax (mommy's little helper). I began discussing the procedure with these women to find out if they were getting the same as me and such. Nothing major.

The xanax kicked in just in time...The girl 2 patients before me was on the other side of "the door" in the laser room when this nurse/assistant came bursting out of the room yelling "KARREEEENN!!!" I thought "oh shit! it's good thing that I had the xanax." Then the girl came out with red eyes and gave me the thumbs up saying "it's cool." I thought, "She must use that term loosely."

01:50pm After another patient, I was escorted into the dimly lit room by another woman dressed all in blue. She sat me down on the table and put my head in this little padded vice-like wedge that held my head perfectly still while she dripped in numbing drops. Now, when these things kicked in, I couldnt' feel my eyes anymore...it was just cold, but I could still see.

Then, they duct-taped (it felt like it) my eyes open and then put these little plastic eye speculum in (must be Speccy's cousin) and pushed me under the laser. The doctor, this cool sounding black guy, said "ok, you're going to feel some pressure and things might go dark," as he placed the vacuum ring on my eye. Then, everything just dimmed out to a dark fuzzy gray.

Let me clue you in to what's happening now, there's this little thing called a microkeratome that applies a suction and then slices almost completely around your cornea with this itty-bitty sharp blade and leaves that annoying little piece stuck to the eye (like a cheap can-opener). Then, they remove the micro-slicey-ma-thingy and you can see again.

Just as you are starting to feel ok with things, the doctor lifts back the flap that he just cut and everything is fuzzy. Well, it should be, there's no smooth surface anymore. The doctor then wiped my eye a few times with one of those little spongy paintbrush things (seen in the picture on the right) and said "stare into the red light." I immediately flashed to Poltergeist "come into the light Carol-Anne," but went ahead with his instructions.

This is when the laser starts to actually work on your eye. I had to bear about a minute on each eye due to my Rx, but it seemed like forever. I saw these little sparks like fireworks and then smelled what can only be compared to burning hair. After that was done, the doctor wiped my eye, flipped the flap down,took off the equipment, and went to work on the other eye (repeat above few paragraphs).

02:05pm When all was said and done, I was helped up from the table and walked out to a recovery room. Everything looked like I was swimming in milk, so I was kind of freaked. I was then instructed to go home and sleep for four hours.

02:30pm When I got home, I fell asleep on the couch with my stylish little granny goggles on (another story) for a couple of hours. I don't usually nap at that hour, so I thought it would take forever. However, I guess there's something about being worked up for so long that by the time you lay down in your own home, that you slip into a mini-coma.

5:00pm I woke up to what I can only compare to 50 eyelashes covered in mascara poked into my eyes. It was excrutiating, but then I looked at the instruction sheet (no, I wasn't supposed to be reading yet) where it said that I would have a burning sensation for up to 8 hours. I figured it was ok, so I whined a bit, took some tylenol, put in my drops, and went back to sleep.

07:45pm I woke up again and I could actually see! I thought, this is weird. Things had a bit of glare around them, but I could kinda see what was going on. I then watched tv (the new "The Book of Daniel" was actually kinda cool) and went to bed (for real this time) around 11:30.

07:30am I woke up this a.m., rolled over and saw something I'd not seen since I was a small child--The numbers on the alarm clock were readable without me pressing my nose to it! :Hallelujah:!

11:10am Long story short, I went back to the doctor this morning and he said "wow, these don't even look like they've been done!" After some measurements it was determined that my right eye is at 20/20 and my left 20/25. Combined I am able to see at 20/20. However, he also said that I should only be at 20/30 by now, so my eyes are healing quickly.

I'll let you know in a week when I see them again if they've stabilized or started reverting back. For now, I'm pretty happy with things.

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