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Observations on LASIK
My sexy post-surgery sleep goggles.
My LASIK surgery was a just a little more than eight hours ago, and while I am not 100% vision-wise, but I can read the guide on the tv and see my laptop using just my eyes and nothing corrective for the first time since I was 12. This is pretty cool, even if everything in my peripheral vision is still blurry. I am trying not to spend much time on the computer, but thought I would share a few impressions:
- Valium is horrible. It made me feel woozy and stupid, not calm and relaxed.
- It is intensely freaky – even when stoned on Valium – to be able to see the suction thinger and lasers coming at your eyes.
- I didn’t know I would be given the choice between a stuffed raccoon and a football to occupy my hands during the surgery. I chose the raccoon because it was already out and squeezed the living daylights out of it. I doubt it will ever be the same.
- Nobody told me the laser would smell like burning hair. That was most unsettling.
- Everyone I had talked to about LASIK told me it was painless, so I was totally unprepared for the fact that my eyes hurt like crazy for an hour or so. I think this may be due to the fact that it was really sunny – sunnier than even my freebie sunglasses could block out. My eyes felt like they were on fire.
- Once I had taken the two-hour nap recommended in my post-operative instructions, the pain was gone.
- I thought the instructions to put drops in my eyes at least every 30 minutes seemed ridiculous, but as it turns out, my eyes want them about every 20 minutes.
- The giant plastic sleep goggles are not designed for people like me, who sleep on their belly.
- It was incredibly helpful to have my sister-in-law there to bring me home. I was told I’d be fine to get home on my own on the Metro, but I am pretty sure that would have been a disaster. She also bought me lunch and waited until I woke up from my nap to make sure I was OK. (Thanks, Jen!)
OK, that’s probably enough computer time for now. Many thanks to everyone who shared well-wishes here and on Facebook/Twitter. It was nice to know folks were pulling for me.
Wayback Wednesday: End of an Era
My school photo from 1983 – 7th grade.
I first got glasses when I was 12 years old, in the seventh grade. I hated them from the get-go, which I know is hard to imagine, given their ginormous 80s awesomeness. I didn’t really wear them as much as I should and seem to have avoided wearing them for photographs. The picture at right, in fact, is the only school photo of mine where I have them on.
At some point within the firs year or so of having glasses, I somehow got my parents to agree to let me get contact lenses – on the seemingly impossible condition that I pay for them myself. (Soft lenses were fairly new in the mid-1980s and were very expensive.) I babysat a lot. And delivered a lot of papers. And shelved countless books at the library. And had my first pair of contacts at 15.
From that point on, I never wore glasses regularly again until about a year and a half ago, when I realized that what I had taken for an allergy-induced bout of itchy eyes had been going on for six months – far outlasting allergy season. Over the course of six months I tried wearing my contacts less and less, switching the solutions I was using, changing out my lenses more frequently… all to no avail. After 25 years of wearing contacts, my eyes were just done.
I went back to wearing glasses full time last spring, and have hated it as much as an adult as I did as a 12-year-old. From a vanity perspective, I don’t like how I look in glasses, but much more importantly, I don’t like the way I see. After so many years in contacts, with full peripheral vision, being allotted two tiny rectangles of clear sight just doesn’t work for me.
And so, tomorrow I go under the knife – well, laser – for LASIK surgery to permanently fix my eyes. I am kinda nervous about the procedure itself, but am so excited by the idea that I’ll wake up Friday morning and be able to see the clock from my bed. The era where I can’t see squat without help will finally be over. I won’t miss it.
