...and that's what they do to them! It sounds kind of crazy - and it is - but it's also pretty awesome. I've been trying to think of the best way to describe it and I've been taking a lot of notes lately for work (focus groups! argh!) so I'm just going to break it down for you.
WARNING: This description, and laser vision correction in general, is not for the faint of heart. I began telling my old roommate, Becky, about it and she said: "Steph you are going to have to stop. I'm getting nauseous and dizzy just hearing about it." She was driving at the time so I did stop.
Preparation
I went for a free consultation to decide if I was a good candidate for laser vision correction, this is crucial as there are people who are not good candidates. After scheduling my surgery I had to mark one week out for when to stop wearing my soft contacts. This was annoying, see here. You need a driver for the day of the surgery and the follow-up on the day after. No solid foods 4 hours before the surgery.
Surgery
OK, on to the good stuff! The longest part of the whole procedure consisted of talking to the nurse, having my blood pressure taken, and taking a Valium. The blood pressure cuff wrapped around my arm so many times that it started ripping off when the nurse tried to get my BP, I thought my bicep was so huge it was busting it off. She had to switch to the "Small Adult" blood pressure cuff :( Didn't think much of the Valium... until I retold the aforementioned bulging blood pressure bicep story. Anyway, you rest in a chair for a few minutes with numbing drops in your eyes until they take you into the operating room. More numbing drops, they tell you about the surgery and then they tape back one of your eyelids and put in a device to hold your eye open, mildly uncomfortable. Then the first arm of the machine comes over your eye and it makes the cuts in your eye. This machine was pressing intensely hard on my cheekbone which I'm not sure would be true for everyone. That was definitely uncomfortable but the cutting itself didn't faze me, I thought it was rather interesting and it was more like I was watching it from underwater than from my own eye. Then that arm goes away and the other arm comes over to do the laser correction, much better on the cheekbone. This is where they tell you it will smell slightly of burning hair, I remember thinking it wasn't as gross as that but I can no longer recall my brilliant new description of the stench. You have to stare at a sparkly light for that part but that isn't hard or uncomfortable. Once the laser is done, it looks like the surgeon is swabbing the flaps of your eye back in place, but that doesn’t take long and doesn’t hurt. Then they do everything the same for the other eye. My eyes had a pretty big difference in nearsightedness, which the surgeon said was as unusual as someone having a size 8 foot and a size 5 foot (he actually called it "quirky"), so my left eye required more laser and more time, but still that was only about 65 seconds total for the laser correction. Oh, and I thought all of my eyelashes ripped out when they pulled the tape off of my eyelids, but I had Doug check as soon as we got home and I did have eyelashes left, whew.
Recovery
The surgeon had me read the clock after I sat up from the surgery and I did pretty good, crazy analog timepieces. Then he told me that soon the numbing drops would wear off and it would feel like someone threw gravel in my eyes. I would compare it more to what it felt like when I got pepper sprayed which I liked thinking of better because I knew I could handle it and thinking about the description of gravel in my eyes seemed much too violent. They gave me sunglasses which I pretty much wore the rest of the day/evening. I had to eat something when we got home and then I immediately took 3 Ibuprofen (OK and 1 leftover muscle relaxer) and took a nap. They tell you to nap as those first 3-4 hours can be a little rough and it’s good for your eyes to rest. My first nap was under 2 hours and when I woke up the stinging was already much less which made me feel better. Every time I woke up after that, it just continued to get better and better. By the next day, the swelling of my eyes had mostly disappeared and although I was still sensitive to light, I felt great. My delinquent left eye has had some inflammation, but the surgeon has kept me coming in to follow up on it and though it is a little slower to heal and become crystal clear (due to more than double the laser), it is making progress and with my right eye seeing perfect and feeling perfect my overall vision is 20/20. You have to put drops in your eyes for a week and we are continuing some drops for another couple of weeks in that left eye to help it out. You also can’t wear eye make-up for a week, which I’m actually enjoying as without contacts or make-up it saves me quite a bit of time getting ready.
I told the surgeon that I am still getting used to Perfect Vision Freedom as at night I can’t help thinking “Now, aren’t I supposed to take out my contacts?” and the first time I drove I couldn’t believe I was driving without contacts or glasses as I haven’t done that since… well, ever, considering I started needing contacts in middle school! Overall, as you can probably tell, I am thrilled with the results. If you don’t have that bad of vision and/or you don’t mind wearing contacts or glasses then the surgery might not be for you. I’ve also discovered that a lot of people (Becky) are really freaked out about the thought of anything coming within 1 ft. of their eyes let alone breaking their eyes open and correcting their vision with lasers. For me, it is already life changing and I think my only regret will be that I didn’t do it sooner.
