No more glasses

I took a vacation day yesterday and underwent LASIK surgery on both eyes. I had been wearing my glasses since August 24, the start of our Seattle trip, and was more than ready to be rid of them. Contact wear apparently can affect the shape of your cornea, so they are disallowed in the weeks running up to the surgery.

We dropped Rachel off at a friend's house not far from school just after 8am (drop off at school doesn't start until 8:30), then Nicole, Lydia and I drove up to Wexford, about a half hour north, where the vision center is. Nicole and Lydia left me there and went shopping at Soergel's and Shenot farms. In the meantime, I got prepped for my surgery. The doctor checked my charts and gave me some Valium. Then I sat in a waiting room for about fifteen minutes and put some covers over my shoes and hair.

I never did feel the Valium kick in. Whatever its effects, they were subtle. I went into the surgery room and lay down on the cot there. The nurse gave me two stress balls to squeeze, and the surgeon put anesthetic drops in my eyes. They also wiped my eyelids with some kind of antiseptic, and put an antiseptic drop in each eye, I think.

They performed the same procedure on both eyes: First, they covered up the other eye. Then, they put me under the second laser, and showed me the blinking light that I would need to look at shortly, and the ring of light around it that would help me find it after the first laser had done its work and my vision was fuzzy. Then, they taped my eyebrow, put a spring in my eye to hold the lids open, then put a suction ring down onto the cornea to hold it in place while the first laser did its work.

They told me I would lose sight in the eye because of the pressure, which was intense. It faded out during the brief transfer from one laser machine to the other. So, now, I couldn't see anything with either eye and I had uncomfortable pressure on the one undergoing the procedure. Fortunately, the first laser only takes about fifteen seconds to work. The surgeon counted down for me. It creates a partial ring of bubbles under the cornea that become an incision that allows the doctor to pull back a flap, so the second laser can remove part of the middle of the cornea, instead of the surface.

Once the surgeon removed the suction, I could see again, and I watched as he carefully pulled back the flap. It seemed to take him a couple tries to get hold of it the first time. (Or maybe I misunderstood what was happening.) Without the front of my cornea in place, my vision was very fuzzy, and I had a hard time locating the flashing light under the second laser, but eventually did. I stared directly at it holding as still as I could for the few seconds the procedure required, and then they pulled me back out, the surgeon used some kind of miniature squeegee to put the corneal flap back in place, and finally they removed the spring and the tape, and my eye was back to normal. Except I could see clearly.

Then, with the right eye at least, which was first, they immediately covered it up. But after both eyes were done, they helped me sit up and walked me out to a recovery room where I sat for a few minutes. The nurse called Nicole to tell her I was finished. Nicole had been intending to come back at 10:30, but it was only 10:00. A different doctor took me to an examination room to look at my eyes briefly, and then sent me on my way.

Only a few moments after we started down the highway towards home, the anesthetic in my eyes started to wear off and they got very uncomfortable. I couldn't keep them open, despite wrap-around sunglasses, and even closed they weren't very happy. But, the drive home was quick because there was little traffic, and I fell asleep in the Giant-Eagle parking lot while Nicole was filling my eye drop prescriptions.

Back home around 11:00, I took a nap for an hour and a half, after which I felt a lot better. I lay in bed listening to a couple podcasts for another hour, then gave up on trying to sleep and got up to eat lunch and take my first dose of eye drops. I wasn't supposed to read, watch TV, exercise, or do anything dirty or dusty. I couldn't think of much to do. Later in the afternoon, I decided to lie down again, and ended up sleeping a couple more hours.

This morning I felt even better. My 10 am check-up at my eye doctor went well, and I'm back to reading, using the computer, etc. I could already read the 20/20 chart today, even though they say it will take a few days or weeks for my vision to stabilize. I'm very excited about the next fifteen years or so with no glasses or contacts hassle. My eyes are still a little bloodshot, but I guess that will go away soon.