Hooray, no more glasses or contacts!

This afternoon at around 1pm, the contours of my eyes were laser-shaped in that I would never need corrective vision EVAR. Well, until presbyopia sets in when I'm 40+ years old (or as my LASIK-bud I came in with and I call it, presbyterian).

It's 9:20 right now, approximately 8 hours after my surgery and I can see fairly well aside from a little milkiness in my closeup vision due to inflammation.

The surgery went pretty smoothly. I took the prescribed Valium 30 minutes ahead of time. I was never really too concerned about the whole thing until they moved me under the huge microscope/laser apparatus. Being awake and listening to the doctor barking out orders authoritatively to his nurses was a little nerveracking.

After my eyes were prepped with betadine and disinfected, he taped my eyelashes down. Hopefully he didn't pull out too many - my eyelash reservoir is sparse enough to begin with. He then put the clamp on my eyes to keep them open. I kept having the urge to blink.. I wonder what that looks like with the clamps on. The other eye was covered with a pirate patch. He touched my eyeball twice with these instruments, which was probably the most uncomfortable aspect of the procedure (aside from taking the tape off of my eyelashes). My only responsibility throughout the whole thing was to keep focused on the red light. This was difficult. I kept wanting to fall asleep, but in my blurry crazy vision while my eyeball was getting cut up, this was a challenge.. especially with my left eye which he worked on second. It felt like the light was drifting off to the left and I was worried that the side of my eyeball would be 'corrected' instead of the center. The second eye was more uncomfortable than the first. I discussed this with Mark who drove me to and from the doctor's office and who had the procedure done 2 years ago; he said he experienced the same thing. The nurses even warned him beforehand that it seems like the second eye hurts more.. and that its pretty much all in your head.

After the procedure, I walked over to the other room for the doctor to check his work. Everything was milky and blurry. My right eye, since it was done first, was slightly less milky. He came in and said I was an extremely cooperative patient and everything went smoothly. Whew. He was suprised at how quickly my right eye was recovering and mentioned he would give me a call later on today to check how I was doing. So for the past 8 hours I've been sleeping away with Valium in hand, wearing these space age goggles I'm supposed to keep on until my followup appt tomorrow morning and nightly for a week. About 4 hours after I got home, my eyes started tearing uncontrollably, like I had extremely dry eyes and allergies. That was probably the most miserable part and during it all, the UPS dude came by and dropped my golf clubs off (HOOORAY!!! Golf clubs!!) Anyway, I must've looked a mess with my eyes tearing and in my pajamas. He apologized for waking me up. heh heh.

Thank you to all my friends who called and checked to see how I was doing. I love you guys!!

I wonder if I look odd to China like this. I have a wierd craving for bacon and eggs.