I’ve always prided myself on the thickness of my corneas and I often try to work them into conversations whenever I can - job interviews, hitting on girls at the gym, etc. During a routine exam my eye doctor told me that since my vision had remained stable for so long and my corneas were thick enough so I was deemed a good candidate for laser surgery. My well-founded pride suddenly became something I could actually leverage without so many strange glances or restraining orders being shot my way.
So, after over three decades of having to deal with glasses and contact lenses I finally pulled the trigger and got my eyes done last week. I couldn’t be happier.
Although I wanted to have perfect sight in both eyes my optometrist convinced me to leave my non-dominant eye slightly under-corrected to preserve my close-up vision for a longer stretch than would have been probable otherwise. I know I will need reading glasses someday - it’s not a matter of “if” but “when” - so having less than flawless vision at a distance seemed like a reasonable tradeoff if I can push the “when” out five to ten more years.
The doctor gave me some lenses to simulate the effect of the proposed changes. One contact had full (including astigmatism) correction and the other was a couple of notches under 20/20. One reason for this was to “manage expectations” - I guess some folks think that laser surgery will grant them the same visual acuity as if they had been bitten by a radioactive eagle or something. It was also to see if I could adapt without headaches, vertigo, or other complaints. I wore them for a few days before deciding that this would definitely be the way to go.
I had worn contacts for about 20 years so I was used to that bit. I had never had contacts that corrected for astigmatism before, though, and I always asked the doc to keep both the lenses the same so I didn't have to deal with left-eye, right-eye hassles. I wasn’t too sure what to expect. I wore these test contacts for a couple of days and it turned out everything was just fine. The worst thing I could say about the intentional mismatch is that the world looked like I was viewing it through contacts that were a couple of days old instead of though ones that were fresh-out-of-the-box. Maybe a better description for those of you who don’t wear contacts is that the effect was pretty much the same as the difference between looking out your car window with the glass rolled up and the glass rolled down. You can tell there’s… something there… but that “something” is not really “there” unless you want it to be “there”.
The doctor set up the date for the procedure and I called to finalize the scheduling and the payment schedule. The super-friendly and efficient lady on the phone giving me all of the info told me I would be getting an additional 20% off of the normal price of the procedure thanks to, and I’m not kidding here, their “March Madness Sales Event”. I’m pretty sure they could have called this discount virtually anything else and it would have been infinitely less off-putting. “I’m Crazy Eddie, and the way I fire high-precision lasers into your eyeballs is INSANE!!” is the vibe that gives off, you know?
The pre-surgery package with all of the “SIGN HERE”s and “INITIAL HERE”s came in and it listed the usual terrifying disclaimer CYA stuff all medical paperwork comes with in this idiotically litigious world. Side effects may include chronic diarrhea, persistent Tourette’s-like outbursts, acute skin failure, and catastrophic ocular explosions whenever it rains - stuff like that.
The documentation also advised eating lightly before the operation and to wear comfortable clothes like “a sweatshirt and pants”. PANTS!? What is this, Nazi Germany? Here I am thinking I could get a vasectomy thrown in as a “twofer” (it IS March Madness, and they DO already have the laser warmed up, after all) and these fascists insist I wear pants. This stupid country…
The day of the surgery came and we drove to the facility. An army of smiling, pleasant, and efficient workers took my paperwork and did the stuff they needed to do with it. After a short wait I had my eyes re-scanned and I met the surgeon. He went over all the stuff that was going to happen and described the tools they were going to use and the sensations to expect (a slight pressure here, a buzzing sound indicating the laser was self-calibrating, a green blinking light there, etc.). The speech was practiced - he had clearly done this a billion times. The speech was NOT bored or arrogant. It was calming and friendly.
They gave me a little blue poofy hat and told me to put it on which I did unquestioningly. I’m sure the cap serves a purpose but I really couldn’t tell you exactly what. Hell, I suppose they could have told me to put on a rainbow wig, a red clown nose, and some big floppy shoes and I would have robotically complied as well.
I removed my glasses for the very last time (wow…) and handed them to the doctor’s assistant.
They led me into the brightly-lit and super-clean OR and it was a lot to take in. The machine looks a bit like a cross between a massage table and an MRI scanner. They took my info again to make sure I was the right person, told me once again what to expect, and they asked me to lie down. They elevated my legs slightly and moved the table into position under the laser.
As I was lying there allowing myself to come to grips with the fact that this was really, really, really going to happen it occurred to me that my optometrist wears glasses. I never really noticed before that instant…
A fan kicked on. “Hold still for eight seconds,” I heard the surgeon say.
When someone tells you to “hold still for eight seconds” because they are about to cut into your eye, you obey to such a level that light switches appear wishy-washy by comparison. I was a Zen… Freaking… Master. My autonomic nervous responses were willfully disengaged and a team of sadists armed with Tazers and branding irons could not have caused me to wiggle a fraction of a micron.
After the preparatory incisions (eight seconds per eye), the ablation work commenced. My role was to just stare straight ahead at a blurry green blinking light. Eight more seconds for one eye and twelve for the other (correcting for astigmatism takes a bit longer). After each eye was corrected the cornea was “painted” closed and each brush stroke made the little green light clearer and clearer and clearer. I mentioned that the surgeon prepared me for all the sensations I would experience - what I would feel, what I would see, what I would hear. He didn’t tell me about the smell.
You see, your cornea contains many layers of a transparent collagen. Collagen is the same sort of material found in your fingernails and your hair. So, as a laser is vaporizing tiny parts of your cornea some of that vapor escapes into the room. The exhaust fan I heard kick on does double duty of preventing smoke from interfering with the optics and preventing everyone in the room from puking their guts out all day long.
Of course, now you have this image of smoke billowing from my eye sockets and three or four techs standing at the ready with fire extinguishers in hand. Yeah… at hilarious as that is, it’s a gross exaggeration. I have a very sensitive nose and it was a barely perceptible whiff but it was there and, once smelled, it couldn’t be un-smelled.
During my post-op exam I asked the doctor about it since at the time I didn’t know about the collagen thing. He said “Oh, yeah. I never told you about the smell.” Frankly, I don’t care if this was an oversight or an intentional omission. The surgery would probably not be as popular as it is now if “NOW WITH 30% LESS SMOLDERING HAMSTER ODOR” was the tagline in their ad campaign.
Immediately after leaving the OR and before my post-op exam I gave my new eyes a try. I was told to expect things to be blurry and then gradually clear up over the day and finally stabilize over a few weeks. Things were blurry but WAY better than my uncorrected pre-op eyes were. By the time I reached the parking lot (45 minutes had passed at this point since my pre-op exam) my vision improved by an order of magnitude. I “wowed” my wife by letting her know on a minute per minute basis which traffic signs I could read and which I could not read as she drove me home. Not annoying at all, I’m sure.
By the time I got home 45 minutes later, far away street signs were clear enough - not perfect, but clear enough - to make out. I took a nap and when I woke up it was though I had fallen asleep in my contact lenses. During my follow-up exam the next day - which I drove to myself - I scored better than 20/15 under ideal lighting conditions. Mind you, this is with one eye slightly under-corrected.
I see better now than when I was nine. There are no words.
I sleep with these foam and plastic goggles now to prevent myself from rubbing my eyes unconsciously at night. They are shaped a bit like ski goggles and are a lot more comfortable than they look. It sucks but its only for a little longer and it beats the alternative of one of them dog cone things I guess. I need to wear them for a just few more days, then that will be that. Oh, I am also forbidden from doing anything dusty like yard work or cleaning the litter box for two weeks which is absolutely heartbreaking as you can well imagine.
I will even be allowed to go swimming with my son after a couple of weeks. That is going to rock. Before, I had the choice of a) feeling my contact lenses lift off my eyeballs and gently float away or b) not wearing contacts and hoping to God that the pink fuzzy thing I was reaching for was, in fact, my child and not someone else’s.
It’s been a few days and I still can’t believe I finally went through with this, even though the evidence is right there on the forever-to-be-unwatched DVD of the surgical procedure they gave me as I left the facility. After I post this I am going to go through all of my old eye stuff and chucking what needs to be chucked and donating what can be donated. It’s a chore I look forward to with relish.
If you are on the fence getting this done, do it. It is totally worth it.
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