I can see! I can SEEEEE!!!!

It's been less than 24 hours with my new bionic eyes and I can already see about as well as with my contact lenses. As time passes it should get better... hopefully it will be as good as with my glasses by tomorrow. I went to my follow-up appointment this morning and I wasn't quite at 20/20 yet. They told me everything looks good though, so that's a relief... especially since I ran into a girl on my way in that was mentioning that she actually had something stuck in one of her eyes. Ouch!

Let me tell you about my day at the Lasik clinic yesterday. My appointment was for 12:45pm but I was taking the bus there so I could get picked up afterwards and I arrived early at about 12:15pm. They asked me to sign my consent forms and go to the waiting room. I sat there for what seemed like a long time before someone called me into an office where they went over the sugery after-care with me and took my money (they were quick about that, let me tell you). Then I went back to the waiting room and sat again for a while. I was next called into an examining room to double check my vision. And guess what? Back to the waiting room. Finally I was called along with two other guys to go around the corner to the operation area. D-oh! Foiled again... there was another waiting room back there. We sat and waited just a bit for Dr. Weinstock to come by for a chat. He reminded us that laser eye surgery is not to be taken lightly b/c it is still surgery. He also reminded us that there are risks. The most common noticeable risk is a small-flap or incomplete flap... there's a 1% risk... however in the 33,000+ procedures he did last year, he only had 3, which is better than 1%. And even if it happens you can usually let it heal for 3 months and try again. I like those odds.

If you're squeamish at all, you might want to skip this next part...

I was the last of the group to go in for sugery. Each surgery only took about 10 minutes. Boy, was that wait excruciating! I put on a hair bonnet and went into the OR. They lay me down on a table and taped up one eye with a plastic sheild. Dr. Weinstock double checked my name, which eye he was about to work on, and the measurements. Next he applied some freezing drops, taped my eyelashes out of the way. He then attached some sort of wire thing that held my lids open (way more open than an eye was probably designed to open!) which was a bit uncomfortable. After that he put what (to me) looked like a ring over my eyeball. This was the keratome, which he described earlier as a high-tech deli slicer. Nice. I have to say that I freaked out a little here b/c it pinched quite a bit when this went on and I was worried that maybe my freezing drops didn't work! I asked him if it that was supposed to hurt and he said it was ok... it should pinch a bit. They applied the vacuum and my vision went dark. Seconds later he was lifting a flap of my cornea out of the way. Ew. Then I was instructed to just stare at the blinking red light while the laser did its thing (you could hear a buzzing/tapping sound). As the laser reshaped my cornea, it smelled like burning hair. That was incredibly disturbing. That part only took seconds too, and the other woman (assistant?) was counting down for me the whole time... "halfway done" etc. Then Dr. Weinstock added some more drops, put the flap back over my eye and removed the clamps and tape. The other eye was the same but no better even though I knew exactly what was going to happen.

That was the worst of it so you can resume reading now.

I have to admit that was pretty nervous once I was in the OR. I think I was clenching my teeth and white-knuckling it the whole time. I gave myself a migraine in the process. After I got up from the operating table I got checked out to make sure the flaps were properly replaced. Dr. Weinstock shone a very bright light into my eye and said that there were some dry spots on my right eye so he squirted some liquid stuff on it and then let me go. I went to the adjoining room where another lady applied more drops and instructed me on how to do it myself. I had to apply an antibiotic drop and a steriod drop once every 4 hours after the surgery and rewetting tears every 15 minutes. They gave me big badass sunglasses to wear as well. In the waiting room (again!) I just sat with my eyes closed. The guy who was operated on before me was there and he told me that his eyes were starting to burn. Nice. Thanks. Mine were fine however. As the anesthetic wore off, I felt like there was some sand stuck in my eye, but that was the worst of it. After a while I was called into an examining room to get checked out one last time. More painful bright lights. Everything looked a-ok.

Finally I was let go. Mike came to pick me up. Unfortunately while I spent 4-5 hours at the clinic, the sun decided to come out. All I could do was shut my eyes and let Mike lead me to the car. The drive home was terrible. I felt like I had stuff in my eyes but I couldn't rub them and I was really sensitive to the brightness even behind the sunglasses and in a tinted car. The rest of the evening I spent lying on the couch with my eyes shut. Mike was great at taking care of me though. He picked up Subway (something I could eat with my hands) and helped me as I ate with my eyes closed. I eventually got to a point where I couldn't open my eyes at all. I'd get as far as a sliver opening but my eyes would just clamp shut again. Let me tell you... applying eye drops when you can't keep your eyes open is tough! Just before bed I had to apply some gel rewetting tears, tape oh-so sexy plastic sheilds to my face so I wouldn't rub my eyes in my sleep, and I fell asleep.

Incredibly when I woke up in the morning I could see the clock and the sand in my eye was almost all gone!

And there you have it - probably more than you ever wanted to know about laser eye surgery.