True originality consists not in a new manner but in a new vision.

I finally had my Lasik surgery.  I took a couple days off for the procedure, and am currently enjoying my last day off. I'll go ahead and go through my experiences in case anyone is interested.  I really wish I had a little more info before I got mine done.  I say this because all I heard and read was that it was no big deal, no pain, just a little discomfort, after a couple hours I wouldn't even know I had it done aside from having to use eyedrops and having better vision.  Not true.

First of all, the procedure itself.  It's really not that bad.  Mine lasted MAYBE ten minutes total for both eyes.  It's definitely uncomfortable, but nothing what I expected.  First of all, I ended up getting the Intralase (bladeless) procedure.  I was expecting to be able to see all of the nitty gritty details of the lasers cutting my eye open.  Not so.  I just looked at an orange light, and it got blurry, then it came back into focus, then it moved around a bit, then my vision went dark for a few minutes, and then it came back, and that was all I saw.  Not at all scary, and this was the part I was really nervous about.  The part that I was NOT worried about was the "suction" feeling they describe.  I would defnitely not describe it as a suction feeling.  What it felt like was a tube being jammed around your eyeball, being pushed really hard.  It hurt.  It did not feel like suction at all, just something being jabbed around your eye.  I will say it wasn't completely unbearable and I'd do it again if I had to.  When the lasers were fixing my eye, I did smell burning, but it wasn't too terrible.  After all of that, they replaced the flap and put in some drops and it was over.  But I have to say, the procedure wasn't the only difficult part.

I was expecting to go home, take a nap, and have it all be over with.  Not so.  Not so at all.  Let me preface this by saying NOBODY said it was painful.  Not one person.  So when they offered me an option to take some ibuprofen before the procedure, I declined.  I just stuck with the Valium.  Big mistake.  After I got out of the procedure, it was time to go pick up my Vicodin prescription.  Which, I was told, I may not even need, but it was nice to have just in case I experienced some discomfort.  By the time I got to the pharmacy, I couldn't open my eyes at all because of how much they stung and how much they were watering...they were so raw.  But I had to go inside to get the prescription, so Tyler had to walk me around and sit me down, and sign for me, etc.  It was terrible.  I felt like I was going to throw up, and even being under the influence of Valium, I felt major anxiety because of the pain and not being able to see ANYTHING.  I couldn't wait until I got home.  We also needed to grab something for me to eat with the Vicodin, since it tends to make me feel ill on an empty stomach.  We finally get home after what felt like an eternity, and I'm eating some egg salad really quickly so I can take some pain meds and get some relief and Tyler snaps this pic:



I take my meds and go to lay down knowing I only have one hour to sleep before I have to administer my first set of eyedrops.  I lay there, and my eyes feel as if I poured chemicals in them and decided not to do anything about it.  It burned quite a bit.  I finally fell asleep for about a half an hour.  Then had to wake up and use 3 different eyedrops.  One steroid, one antibiotic, and one lubricating drop.  I had to take them from 5 and then 15 minutes apart from one another, it was a pain.  However, the worst part of this was trying to open my eyes enough to get the drops in.  For one, it hurt, and for two, my eyes were SO sensitive to light it was hard not to recoil, and three, I was deathly afraid of hurting my eye, so I was trying to do everything as gingerly as possibly.  It sucked.  After about a half an hour of dealing with eyedrops, I was able to go back to sleep.  I fell asleep for a half an hour, did some more lubricating eyedrops, went back to sleep.  After about 3 hours of being home, my eyes FINALLY stopped hurting.  They were a little tender but the pain was pretty much gone.  After that point, the only real issue was having to deal with eyedrops every 15-30 minutes, wearing those ridiculous shields, and being bored because I needed to keep resting my eyes and couldn't really watch anything, read, or use the computer.  But, I got through it alright.

Today, I got to shower and then take my shields off, hooray!  I went for my checkup and the doctor said everything is going perfectly, and this is the type of healing they hope for with every patient.  My eyesight is now 20/15 in each eye and will only get better.  I don't know that I'll see more clearly, but my peripheral vision is a little blurry, so I think that is what will get better.   I still have to do eyedrops, but I only have to do one of the eyedrops every half hour, and the other two are only 4 times a day, so it's much less of a hassle.  The one thing that is going to be interesting is people's reactions to my eyeballs.  One of my eyes got a considerable amount of bruising (it looks bloody as a result of the "suction" part of the surgery).  The other eye just has a little bit of bruising.  I splurged on some Dolce sunglasses previous to my surgery for this very reason, but they don't seem to fit on the bridge of my nose and they keep sliding down my face.  I guess I'll just have to wear some other sunglasses until I feel less self conscious about my Black Swan eyes:


As of today, my eyes feel a little like I am wearing contact lenses.  They also feel strained and tired so I plan to rest them here and there throughout the day and hope tomorrow is even better!  I am definitely glad I got the procedure done.  I know it may sound pretty terrible, it had it's difficult moments, but had I been more prepared for what it was actually going to be like, I don't think I would have had as hard of a time with it (mostly because I would have just taken the damn ibuprofen, and also afterwards, I wouldn't have been wondering why it was taking so long to feel less pain).  So, for those of you thinking about getting Lasik, I would definitely recommend it.  Don't be afraid, but just don't be naive and think it's not going to hurt at all afterwards.  Be prepared for it to be a little difficult at times, and you'll be just fine.