I once was blind

I am writing from vacation. I had my big laser surgery this morning. It has been quite a couple of days.

Yesterday I went down for my pre-op exam for the doctors to determine just what needed to be done with my eyes. They told me to prepare myself for 2 hours of tests. They were looking at me for over 4 hours. I was seen by a technician and 3 doctors. Evidently I have really, really bad eyes. The quote of the day came from the technician who was getting a preliminary reading on my prescription. A machine would look into my eye and get a ballpark estimate of what my prescription would be. Once the machine was done and then indicated to the technician what my prescription was - her only response was, "wow" - quote of the day. I am not sure what these numbers mean, but the doctors tell me that I am at a negative 10 in one eye and a negative 13 in the other. People who know what those numbers mean all tell me the same thing, "wow, that's really bad."

My eyes are so bad in fact that they are almost too bad for laser surgery - I found out yesterday. With the amount of fixing that my eyes require combined with what the doctor called "a cornea that is a bit flatter than I would like", there is the outside chance that I will forever have a bit of a glow around light and edges - especially at night. He told me that he could get my vision down to where I could see the letters (in the 20/20 range) but that the edges might not be as "crisp" as you would like. I told him that my eyes have been so bad my whole life - I have never seen "crisp". I am a bit unsure as to what "crisp" actually looks like. We went ahead with the surgery.

I know several people that have had this surgery. They all tell me it is quick and painless - piece of cake - nothin' at all. Maybe I am just wimpy - or maybe there was a little more involved with my eyes than most, I don't know. But, when I left I said, "well, it wasn't too bad - but it sure wasn't nothin." After the flap is cut and peeled back and the then the laser starts working on the inside of the eye - making the corrections - it evidently takes about 30 seconds or so (for most people for the laser to the do the job). Mine took well over a minute for each eye. And there was a pretty strong burning smell. And that burning was... you guessed it - burning eyeball. It is a rather disconcerting smell actually. All the while the doctor is holding your head and saying, "don't move, don't move, don't move..."

After the surgery the doctor was very pleased with how it went. I could already tell, just minutes after the surgery that I was seeing sooo much better. He gave me a sleeping pill and then sent me home to take a nap. My vision is supposed to get better and better with each day over the coming days and weeks. I am already impressed that even today - just 7 hours after the surgery, I can see well enough to write this blog post without glasses or anything.

This is amazing.