Lasik

So Lasik was... interesting. After getting it done, I'm not sure I'd have the nerve to do it again, but I'm so happy I did it.

Here's how it went.

Dad picked me up early and we got to the clinic. There were a bunch of people there. We waited in the waiting room for a couple of hours. You check in, you sign the paperwork, you pay, you get your eyes checked again, they put drops in your eyes, they put a hairnet on you, you take the xanax, you let it kick in... all with periods of waiting in-between.
Plenty of time for Dad to make jokes about them getting the laser warmed up and, you know, going blind.

Then, in the span of about 10 minutes, things got exciting.

First of all, the doctor was a character and he was pumped. You can tell he's done about 10 million of these things and he was ready to rock and roll... literally.

I handed Dad my glasses and my purse, and he watched the whole thing through a window. I was led to lay down and I got some more drops in my eyes. The doctor had rock and roll music playing, which I found highly amusing.

Something was placed on my eye, all around, inside the eyelids. I could feel pressure but no pain and I couldn't really see it. I guess the device is a one-size fits all type of thing, because they commented on how small my eyes were and seemed to struggle slightly to get it to fit. Then I think some sort of vacuum was applied and my vision slowly went black. How fun! The process was repeated on the left eye, but halfway during the process, I heard a noise like air being released and my vision suddenly came back. They said the vacuum was lost and they had to try it again.
Overall, it took less than 5 minutes.

Then I was led to another room, through a short hallway that had disco lights. Pretty sure that was purely for aesthetic.

Then I laid down on another table, and again, something was put on my eye to keep it open, and then the weird part was... I could see the scalpel coming towards my eye. I couldn't feel anything, but I could SEE him cutting all around my eye, and I could SEE him opening the flap. SUPER WEIRD.
Then once my eye was open, the laser did its thing. A few seconds of looking at green and red lights, the smell of burning, and then he closed the flap and started on the second eye.
Same crazy thing, I could SEE it all, but this time I knew it was coming so I felt very uncomfortable. Thank God for the drugs because it was very unnerving.

Again, the whole process took less than 5 minutes. My dad said the doctor was so skilled and smooth, he might as well have been spinning the scalpel and doing tricks. They gave me sunglasses, I took a picture with the doctor, and then Dad and I headed out the door. It was that quick.

There was some burning, watering, and stinging on the drive home, and you're supposed to nap for about 4 hours afterwards. I fell asleep for about an hour. I woke up with really bad stinging and pain, and my eyes were watering so bad I couldn't open them. So I took another xanax and went back to sleep. I woke up and it took a while to get my eyes to open. I could see but things were blurry and I was still a little loopy from the xanax. I also had a terrible headache so I took a pain pill and a bath, then went back to sleep.

The next morning, I opened my eyes and I could -almost- make out the time on the clock across the room. If I looked at it with one eye at a time, I could tell that my right eye was much clearer than my left, and my left eye was a little sore. Probably because they had a hard time putting that device on it. But... I could see the time on the clock, which I couldn't do without glasses before.

I was even able to drive just fine, although sunglasses were absolutely necessary because everything seemed extra bright.

I spent most of the next day putting drops in my eyes. They told me to put drops in every hour, but they felt dry and sore so I was putting them in much more frequently. I went through an entire box of drops, but when I woke up the next day, I could see much clearer and my left eye wasn't sore anymore.

At night, lights had a little halo around them, and sometimes during the day I looked at something and it would have a little halo. Mostly light-colored things. Made them look ghostly. That's slowly getting better.

There are a bunch of restrictions, like no makeup, no rubbing your eyes, no getting water in them, etc. But the biggest thing is the drops. Constant drops. I guess your eyes can't heal right if they're dry so I'm dumping drops in them like crazy. It's either the steroid drops or the antibiotic drops, but one of them tastes terrible. Weird how you can taste eye drops.

There are also big red splotches on the whites of my eyes, in a nice little circle around the colored part. I guess that's where the cuts were made. They don't hurt, but they look bad. I plan to tell people I got in a bar fight.

Anyway, I have my follow-up appointment tomorrow but I know I see way better and it's so awesome.