Last Friday, I had a consultation with the ophthalmologist, who confirmed what my optometrist has said, which is that my eyes are ideal candidates for laser eye surgery. The shape and thickness of my lenses are just right, my prescription has basically not changed for over ten years, and my eyes are healthy. I ticked all the boxes, so I got the thumbs up!
I went in for the surgery the following Wednesday afternoon, and was only in the doctor's office for about half an hour before it was all done. I am fascinated by the medical details of the process, but the vast majority of people do not appear to enjoy hearing about the minutia of eye surgery, so I will respect that and skip right over that part. What I will say is that it went very quickly, with just a few parts that were actively unpleasant. The hardest part was continually explaining to my body that it was okay that there were things touching my eyeball, because my instincts were not impressed, even though my brain was eager.
J took me home, where I was delighted to discover that although it seemed like I was looking through thick fog, things were actually already clearer. I remembered to bring and wear the required sunglasses, but I can already tell it's going to be a hard habit for me to establish. But it's very important, and so I'll get there.
I took this picture as soon as I got home, amazed at how normal my eyes looked and felt.
About 15 minutes later, the numbing eyedrops wore off, and I was significantly less amazed at my eyes' normality. The doctor said I would be "uncomfortable" and have foggy vision for about 5 hours. He was exactly right on the time frame, but I would have chosen a much stronger word than "uncomfortable." It felt like I'd gotten an extremely astringent liquid in my eye and couldn't get it out. So my eyes burned, throbbed, and streamed tears, and the foggy vision was irrelevant because I couldn't open my eyes. I forced them open once an hour to put in eye drops, and otherwise laid still and tried to focus on my audio book, although that was a bit of a struggle because the pain was distracting. To be clear, on the grand scheme of pain it was pretty reasonable, but eye pain is hard to ignore. But after almost exactly five hours, I opened my eyes to put in the drops and discovered that I could do so with much less discomfort. I sat up and looked around, and discovered that that was also manageable, and in fact, I could see clearly! Incredible!!!
I checked my eyes again, and the left one didn't even look bloodshot anymore, but the inner part of the right one was much more red. J says it's a scleral hemorrhage, which just means a blood vessel broke. It looks a bit yucky, but I can't feel it.
I have to tape on eye protectors every night for a week, so I don't accidentally rub or bump my eyes while I'm sleeping. I think they look hilarious, and was delighted to discover that they don't impede my ability to sleep at all.
When I woke up the next morning, J called, "Come use your bionic eyes to see the sunrise!" And there we have it: my first opportunity to see the sun come up from our amazing deck without first having to run and get my glasses or contacts! How wonderful!
Also, I told J that this surgery would give me bionic eyes, because a person in a song we both love has bionic eyes, so I thought that would be awesome. J disagreed, as he is determined to someday get real bionic eyes (artificial lenses that are super accurate and make your vision clearer, sharper, and more intricate than is possible for a real, human eye). So I was shocked and delighted that he referred to my eyes as bionic. He has apparently decided that my eyes can be bionic until real bionic eyes are out of experimental testing and available to the public, at which point I will have to surrender the title. I can live with that.
Days three and four, I have no pain in my eyes, and am only still using the eyedrops because the doctor said to, because I don't feel like I need them. Apparently, dry eyes are the most long-lasting and frustrating part of LASIK, so if I continue to not have a problem with it, I will consider myself very lucky. I still have the bright red scleral hemorrhage, which J says will last a couple weeks. I also have lighter marks in a semi-circle above each iris (you can kind of see the start of it on the eye without the hemorrhage), but that will go away, too. And I have no pain. Amazing.
I had my checkup on day three, and tested at 20:20 vision! I'm still having some slight fluctuations in clarity and sometimes some glowing kinds of effects, but that's all normal and should go away soon. The point is, 20:20 vision! I have another appointment next Wednesday to make sure everything is still going well, and I'm confident it will be.
In conclusion: Laser eye surgery is miraculous, and I'm so glad that I did it!
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