I got Lasik done 2 weeks ago – I can now see. Without my glasses. After 13 years of waking up semi-blind, this is the best feeling in the world! It’s super simple too! I stupidly put it off for about 3 years because I was too scared to do it. You hear all these horror stories, some friend of a friend who went mad after Lasik, or worse, blind. Or that one person for whom Lasik didn’t work because the doctor got the numbers wrong, etc., etc. Well, I decided if I had to have it, it had to be this year because I’ve already decided that this year is a GOOD year.
So all you do is get drops put in your eyes a few minutes before the surgery, and lie under a large machine that looks a bit like something out of Transformers. It’s a bit claustrophobic since the platform you lie on is really skinny and the machine covers most of your upper body. You stare at a light while the doctor clamps an eye open. At this point, the scene from Final Destination 5 popped into my head, but seriously, it’s nothing like that. Firstly, you’re not sitting in a dentist’s chair. You don’t feel a thing, and the doctor doesn’t leave you all alone to fight a war with a hot laser and a pigeon. The clamp is super smooth too, very unlike the weird tool of torture in the film. Anyway, so he clamps your eye open and tells you to stare at a light as he puts a ring round your eye to hold it in position for the rest of the procedure. This is all done in 5 minutes. Once the ring’s in place, you hear a whirring noise (I assume it’s when your cornea flap is cut by the machine), and then you get told to stare at the red light. You smell that weird smell that comes from zapping a mosquito with those electric bats and hear a couple of clicks, and then your eye gets flooded with eye drops (the nurse does that), and the clamp comes off and its done! Then the doctor does the next eye. It’s so quick it’s crazy. They told me it would be 10 minutes, but people always lie about time, so I assumed they were too! No pain, no blood, no tears, no problem!
After that, you go home with massive sun glasses on. You can already see better at this point, although your eyes are a bit tired from the eye drops. The whole car ride back I kept reading shop signs, it was THAT exciting! Two weeks have passed and that does not get old. I can see everything!!! I keep thinking I’ll have to go home and take my contacts out. I can’t believe you just stare at a red light for a few moments and you can see again. I didn’t even have to change out of my jeans, it was so unlike a surgery. I think everyone should get it done. Best decision ever.
The ten days I spent at home after Lasik were the most boring ten days of my life. I was alone for most of the day and spent the first two sleeping, because I had to. But there’s only so much sleep you can get. It got to a point where I couldn’t sleep or even eat because I had done nothing for so long that even my food wasn’t digesting. I couldn’t go out in the sun, and the dust was just as bad for me, so I ended up clearing up my house, rearranging furniture and clothes – anything that didn’t require reading or extreme eye-work. I even cleaned out the fridge – something I have been meaning to do for ages! I definitely depend on technology far too much. Not being able to BBM or use my laptop or even watch TV made me feel a bit like a druggie – definite withdrawal there.
My next plan is to buy a large number of sunglasses in a variety of colours. Yay! Life is good.