Friday, February 27, 2009

I Can See!!!

For some time I had been wanting to get Lasik to fix my blindness. And for most of my life it had been one of those 'one day perhaps' type dreams. Well, at the end of 2008, with the help of a bonus for overtime work from my company and a tax-free health savings account, I decided to go for it. I decided to go to Hoopes Vision. They have the #2 Lasik surgeon in the nation, have the latest equipment, and my co-worker Alvaro had gotten Lasik from them.
It was a free preliminary visit (to see if my eyes could handle the Lasik). While I was at that appointment I found out that my left eye had slight astigmatism. I had no idea. They also explained all the possible complications and procedures and everything. I was nervous because my eyes don't like having things touch them (which is why I never got contacts). But I decided to do it.
My surgery was at the end of January. When I arrived, one of the first things they did was give me Valium (to help calm the patient). I don't know how much it helped or not, I didn't really feal under-the-influence. Then they gave my eyes a whole bunch of different drops (anti-infection, numbing, and other types), and had me wait for a while.
Then it was time for the first phase of the surgery - creating the flap. They brought me into the surgery room and had me lay down on the operating table and worked on 1 eye at a time. They then proceeded to attach stuff to my eye. To me it looked like a clear plastic spoon. Because of my eyes not liking things in them, it made it hard on the doctors. One of them remarked, "It's like you don't want Lasik". But I was trying my best to cooperate. Just those involuntary reflexes are out of my control. After they attached everything, then they turned the suction on. Which made me blind. Then they did their whole laser thing, which took about 20 seconds. Basically the laser made little air bubbles in my cornia. After that, my vision came back but cloudy white. After doing both eyes, they took me out of the room and put me in a massager chair for about 30 mins while my eyes were doing whatever they needed to do.
They then brought me back into the room to do the rest of the surgery. They used a tool to turn up the flap on my eye, and then used another laser to zap away and reshape my eye. For some reason they had more of a problem on the left eye with the flap.
After I was done they inspected their work and gave me instructions afterwards. At that point they then told me that I had to take a bajillion eyedrops. One eyedrop was a steroid (for anti-inflamation) that I had to take 4 times a day for a week, another anti-infection one for the same time period. I also had to use artifical tears every hour for several months.
Liz drove me home. They had told me I needed to rest and get sleep. My eyesight was not super great for the rest of the day. But they told me that it takes about 2 weeks for my vision to settle.
The next day I had a follow-up appointment. I found out later that my right eye tested at 20/20 and might left eye was 20/40. I just barely got back from my 1 month check-up and my right eye tested at 20/15 and my left eye at 20/20. I also sometimes notice at night a little bleeding of lights (like brake lights) especially in my left eye, but it's not bad.

I have really like being able to go swimming and being able to see as I walk around without glasses. I have been using goggles so far as to not have a lot of pressure on my eyes. I am glad I don't need to be tied to glasses anymore!

3 comments:

Tammy said...

great news! it's good to know what's out there since my husband will probably get laser surgery one day.

Kris and Nat said...

Congrats!

Jessi said...

That's awesome! I've had a few friends get lasik and they've never regretted it! :0)

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