So where the heck have YOU been?!
Well, It's a bit of a story. I've been almost blind, blind, in alot of pain, bleary and now I can see just fine. Why? It's called Lasik. Since I was little (like 6), I've had glasses. In high School, I got contact lenses. My eyes were pretty bad, being nearsighted, I couldn't see objects that were more than 1ft. in front of my face, and even with vision correction, my distance vision was never quite spot on. I've always wondered how the world looked to normal people, I was sure it was alot like what I saw, but somehow... different. That, combined with the fact that soon, I'd be on my own when it comes to paying for changes in my eyes (current contact supply runs out in like 3 months, and glasses are 3 years old) prompted me to try something radical.
With the help of my parents (College Graduation present, yea, I got my degree finally, did I mention that?)and the fantastic doctors at the Cleveland branch of
LasikPlus I went under the laser on June 29th.
Once your on the table, the process takes about 10 minutes, at the most. The first step is getting about a half gallon of numbing drops dumped in each eye, after which my left eye was covered. Mr. Right eye was clamped open under 3 very intense lights. It's uncomfortable to say the very least. After my eye "relaxes" (the eye, not me HAHA) the doctor makes the "flap" incision. A small ring is placed onto my eye surface, and a rather intense pressure starts as it's pushed down (I had quick flashes of a kid stepping on a water balloon). Vacuum is applied to maintain the eyes shape after it is cut open. When the vacuum hits, you vision goes black. You hear a grinding, dentists drill type noise and feel some slight pressure on your eye (ontop of the locking ring pressure).
The locking rings are removed and a flap of my corneal tissue is lifted out of the way. Everything goes blurry x10. All I can see how is this pulsing red blob of light on the ceiling. Righty was under the laser for about 1 minute 10 seconds. You don't feel anything, but there was this overwhelming stench of burning hair (I was like hmm, smells like something is burning....oh wait, that's me :P ).
Once the lasing is done, there is more blurriness and discomfort as the flap of tissue is flipped back into place, and another 1/2 gallon of some liquid is poured into my eye to smooth out the cornea again.
Left eye, same as the first, A little bit faster and the smell was worse (HA)
Total procedure was like 5-10 minutes. They slap some dark glasses on you, and tell you to go home and go to bed. The ride home (80 minutes or so) was just plain sucky. My eyes were on fire, with surges of not quite pain, often very intense (I liken it to being as mild as cutting onions, to the outright burn of pepper spray). Any light was the devil, I had an extra shirt that was in the car over my face the entire ride to block out everything.
They tell you to go home and nap after the procedure, and frankly, I can't imagine doing anything but that. I slept for about 4 hours. When I woke up, my eyes felt like glue. Like I had grit in them constantly. I was still very light sensitive (wearing sunglasses the rest of the day) but I could see (things were still a bit on the blurry side). The burning sensation was almost gone, but occasionally resurfaced.
The next day I felt like I had been wearing my contacts for way to long, and the lenses were dry. I was still blurry (or so I thought) but my post-op exam revealed a startling 20/20 vision in both eyes.
Tomorrow is the last day of eye drop style medication for me, and the one week mark since the operation. I can see great, my night vision is still a bit off, and towards the evening my eyes get tired and give me slight headaches, but it's well worth it.
Hopefully I will get back to work on a few projects, and get back onto track with all my other stuff inside of the next week or so (lasik takes really about a full month to heal completely).
