Lasik

I can see clearly now, the blur is gone! (This is a fairly lengthy post about my Lasik experience. You have been warned.)

On May 10th I had a consult to see if I was a good candidate for Lasik eye surgery.

Turns out I was. So they scheduled my surgery for two days later on May 12th.

I was a little nervous but stoked at the thought of not having to hassle with contacts or glasses anymore. I opted out of the Valium they offered to calm me because I was feeling pretty calm already and didn't think I needed it.

But I have to tell you, the surgery was more painful and scary than I thought it would be. 

It hurt more than normal because my eyes are so small and the tools are supposed to be one-size fits all. They had to man-handle them to get it to work. They even needed to re-do part of the procedure on my left eye because it didn't work the first time. (Something in the process of creating the corneal flap.) My eyes are already pretty sensitive to light and they expected me to keep my eyes open as wide as they would go while they blared super bright lights into them. My eyes were screaming to close them but because they had a contraption to keep my eye open, the eyelid just dug into that more.

It was scarier than anticipated simply because I can basically see everything that is happening. I can see my vision get blurry and the lasers going into my eye and then there is a smell of burnt hair (which they did warn me about so I didn't stress too much about that). It is always scary when someone is working on my eyes in that way and I had this small fear that something would go wrong and I would be permanently blind. (Can you see how the Valium would have been a good idea to calm my nerves? Haha.)

See that cute dalmatian I am holding? I thought it was a little funny that they offered him to me at the beginning of the surgery but understood his purpose quickly once the surgery was underway. I was VERY grateful to be able to squeeze him whenever I got tense or nervous. He became my best friend.

After what felt like forever I was done and could kind of tell my vision was better. But my eyes were still really goopy and cloudy from all the drops they put in during the surgery.

I got to go home looking like this and was instructed to take a 2-4 hour nap. It was 5 pm. If I took a nap then I would be awake all night so THAT didn't happen. But I did keep my eyes closed for the allotted amount of time while I listened to Jason feed and put the kids to bed. When I was allowed to open my eyes it was bedtime so I just opted to keep them closed for the rest of the night and fell asleep.

At 12:25 a.m. (ironically this made it actually Friday the 13th) I woke up because my left eye suddenly hurt like I had a pebble in it. I tried to see through it and it was super blurry. Clearly something was wrong. I woke Jason up and told him we need to call the Lasik office. When I explained to the doctor what was going on, he said that I needed to come right in to get it checked out. I was stressed about what to do about the kids in the middle of the night but luckily our next door neighbor is a night owl and was still awake. She was able to come over and sit at the house while we headed to the office. [The kids never woke up, thank goodness,  because I think they would have been really scared to wake up to our neighbor and not us.]

After inspecting my eye he confirmed my fear that my corneal flap had shifted out of place. He called the surgeon and soon I was back in the surgery room with the horrible eye-opening contraption on my eye. They were able to readjust the flap back into place and put a contact in my eye to act as a weight to ensure the flap stayed where it should. I was told to keep my eyes open for the next hour at least which was really hard considering it was about 2:30 a.m. at this point. But I survived.

The next morning I had a follow-up appointment to make sure my eyes were healing like they should. They were, thank goodness. My left eye was still a little more blurry than my right eye  because of the complication but they said it should catch up to my right eye within a week or two. It also still felt like I had an eyelash in my left eye. The doctor explained that for the short while my flap was out of place, my eye started growing more skin (or whatever) to try to heal itself so I had some excess. That is why you need to try to readjust the flap as soon as possible. Your eye starts trying to heal itself so fast that the longer you wait, the harder it is to fix. The eyelash sensation only lasted about a day though and then it felt normal again.

I got to wear these lovely shields every time I slept for a week after the surgery. I had a pretty extensive eye drop routine I needed to do daily for a week as well. Luckily that has passed. I still need to put artificial tears in my eyes for a month post-surgery but that is doable.

This is what the surgery did to my eyes. Apparently you don't normally bruise this bad but thanks to my small eyes and the large tools, I did. Every time I go out in public I find people staring at my eyes and I feel the need to explain that it is not contagious, I just had Lasik. But that would be weird unless they asked so I just keep my mouth shut and let them stare. 

Two weeks post-surgery my eyes are already seeing a pretty good improvement on the creepy-factor. Most of my symptoms have also subsided. (The halos around bright lights have lessened quite a bit and my vision isn't blurry any more. I have to remind myself to put eye drops in because my eyes don't feel super dry like they used to. My eyes are still sensitive to bright lights and I am supposed to wear sunglasses every time I am outside for the next 6 months. But even the light sensitivity isn't as bad as it used to be. The day after surgery I had to wear two pairs of sunglasses and the sun was still so bright it made my eyes water a little.)

Oh! I almost forgot the most exciting part about getting Lasik: My eye sight went from being 20/400 to being 20/10!!! 

So.... after experiencing all these things I didn't anticipate do I regret my decision? No. But I would have liked to be warned a little better about what to expect during and after the surgery. When explaining the process they tend to leave out the scary stuff and the post-surgery recovery.