I can see! For the first time in 20 years I woke up this morning and could tell what time it was. Yesterday was the day of my lasik surgery and I made it through.
Here’s how the surgery went. They told me to expect to be there three hours and the surgery would start at 1:30. They called me earlier that day and said I could come in at 1, so I did. First the nurse examined me and told me about all the eye drops I was going to need and she went through my eye care kit – sunglasses, 3 different forms of eye drops, tylenol, and goggles to wear at night for the first week after the surgery. She offered me a valium, and since I’d never had one before, I decided against it – even though she asked a couple times. Next, I had a quesiton about the papers you had to sign (I had to sign away my right to a trial – any disputes are handled by an arbitrator) but since this is the only clinic in the Dakotas that offers bladeless lasik I signed away my rights. Next, the optometrist came in to validate my prescription so he could put the right value in the laser. Then the surgeon came in to make sure my cornea was thick enough. I passed on all these tests, so I was given drops to numb my eyes and a hairnet and I was ready for surgery.
I walked into the surgery room and without my glasses I couldn’t see too well, but I believe there were three operating tables of which I was going to sit at two. I went to the first operating table where they use a laser to create the flap in my cornea. I waited about 5 minutes for the surgeon to come in – getting a little more nervous the entire time. When the operation started they put a suction cup around my eye which caused me to lose vision completely in my eye. It slowly came back as I looked into a series of lights as the laser came down on me. The laser took about 20 seconds to create the flap as I lay there as tense as possible, trying to focus on the light. They did the same drill on my left eye and after that I had two flaps. When I got up to walk to the other operating table for the correction, I couldn’t really see. It was extremely hazy so the nurses had to help me over to the table.
For the main course they told me the laser takes 45 seconds to correct my corneal aberration. I figured I could handle anything for 45 seconds. I lay there as tense as possible still as the doctor told me to relax and lift up my chin as much as possible. He taped my eye open and positioned the laser over me. He held my eye open as I looked up at a green light. There was a burning sensation throughout the time the laser was correcting. (I can still smell that smell now – nothing like the smell of your skin burning off). When the 45 seconds was done, I thought I was done so I tried to relax, but the surgeon still had to put the flap back in place and then spend about a minute brushing it back in place on my eye. The second eye was the same story, yet I somehow managed to be even more tense during that part. As soon as I was done my eyes hurt, but I opened them up and realized I could see. Not very well, but better than I did walking in the room.
They then brought me to the recovery room where I was to relax and close my eyes for 20 minutes. They might as well call this torture. At first, your eyes don’t hurt much, so I thought "this should be all right". Then I started to realize the pain in my eyes was getting worse and worse as the time went on. Plus, I couldn’t open my eyes or do anything so all I had to think about was how badly my eyes hurt. As much as I tried to think about my fantasy baseball team, I couldn’t concentrate on anything else. Being a man, I’ve always had the instinct to fight crying as much as possible. After I did that for about ten minutes I had to let go and my right eye, in particular, was shedding many tears.
Finally the 20 minutes was up and they took me into a room to give me some numbing drops, which helped. They also tried to examine my eyes, but I couldn’t keep them open for longer than a second, so that took a while to get done. They said I was okay and sent me on my way. The light was extremely bright so I put on my new shades. I booked my appointment for today and sat in then sat in the waiting room for about 30 minutes before Becky finally got there. In that time, I burned through the remaining 20 tissues in their box, and had to resort to using the hand towels in the bathroom. I was joined by two other weepers, and I was wishing, for once, that it wasn’t such a sunny day. I still think the surgeon should get a separate waiting room for potential customers, because I wouldn’t think they’d be too impresed to walk in and see three people and pitch-black glasses looking down with tears rolling down their faces.
They say the first 3 hours are the worst and you should try to sleep. I really started to wish I took the valium now, because there was no way for me to sleep with this kind of stinging in my eyes. I tried to rest in the car, but that didn’t work too well, so I went to my desk at work to get my computer. I ran into my coworkers who all felt sorry for me as I stared at their shoes. I couldn’t lift my eyes high enough to look at them. I grabbed my kleenex box and headed back to the car. I sat there for an hour and we drove home to get the girls. I tried to keep my eyes closed the entire trip. When I got home it started to get better, as I kept my sunglasses for a couple hours. By the time I put Amelia to bed at 7:15, I was actually doing pretty good.
Today when I woke up I could see pretty well, but my vision still isn’t perfect. I went into the surgeon’s office to get checked this morning and they said I have 20/40 vision in each eye and 20/25 together. I don’t think my vision is quite that good, but I can see ok. I’m still getting lots of reflection off any light, so that’s making my vision a little worse. Still, I’ll take it.
I’ve never talked to anyone who’s regretted lasik surgery, and now you can add me to that list. It’s really nice to wake up and see and it’s great to get rid of all my glasses, contacts and saline solution. It’s hard to imagine I spent 20 years not able to see – hopefully I can make another 20 without glasses.
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