Output Stream of Consciousness

Well, I've got off and gotten myself a pair of glasses, my first in years upon years. I've been a contact lens wearer since the end of high school, and I sat on and destroyed my last pair of glasses some time ago. I don't remember when.

This is so that I can go ahead and get myself laser eye surgery. My eyes have taken a fair bit of abuse from contact lens wearing, and I'd like to be vision-correction free by the time I go to Africa.

I must admit that I let my wife go first - she's had the surgery for well over a year now, and let me in on the details, at least with Lasik MD:

You're not supposed to have worn contact lenses in the past little while (I heard 'three weeks' bandied about, but it could vary from that) so that your eye is its natural shape. There's a lot of waiting around on the initial checkup day and the surgery day, so bring what entertainment you can. On the initial checkup day, they will put dilating drops in your eyes. So, ummm, don't drive on that day. Or at least don't expect to drive back home :)

The procedure itself, from what Dena says, takes practically no time at all. The cornea cut is pretty quick, they laser under where the flap was and then put it back. There is some recovery time afterwards in the office. You must wear Terminator-style sunglasses (provided) for the first while afterwards, and put eyeguards on to sleep. If you can sleep right away, that will get you over a lot of the uncomfortable time after surgery, because there will be some pain and itchiness.

Keep refreshing eyedrops around and use liberally. The pain and itchiness will decrease. You'll have visual halos for the first few months, which will disappear. Then you'll wonder how you did without it. If you've been wearing glasses for most of your life, you will be pushing a pair of phantom glasses up your nose for a while.

I'll give them a shout on Monday to see when scheduling is possible. It's possible that I'm not a candidate for LASIK - I might have too-wide pupils, or too little cornea to work with, but I'll find that out.

Ought to be interesting. I'll tell you how it goes :)

Comment by Adam:

Good luck with the lasik. Having gone through it myself, I concur with what you said, both in terms of process and recovery. For me as a regular glasses wearer (I couldn't handle contacts in the Alberta dry air) there was the relief of not having constant irritation on the bridge of my nose of on my ears from where the glasses rested, as well as no longer needing to worry about them constantly fogging and freezing during winter. On the downside, it meant that nice sheltered area behind the frames was gone which makes walking in the wind a bit more uncomfortable... You won't keep the incredibly sharp vision you get immediately (or within a couple of weeks) of surgery but it does stay good for, well, dunno really, but it's now 8 years since I had it and the eyesight is still fine.

Comment by Ritchie:

I've been wearing contacts for a long, long time, so the "sheltering" effect will not be something I notice and miss, hopefully :)

One thing, though, with the contacts out of my eyes for a couple of days now, my eyesight has taken a definite downturn. Not a lot, but enough to make some things turn a bit blurry with these glasses. I guess the contact lenses were holding my eyes in shape. Ugh, I'd almost forgotten how horrible my eyesight is.

I've been getting motion sick from having the refraction point so far in front of my eyes and nearly took a tumble down the stairs the other day.

I guess that all in all, this makes me look forward to the surgery a lot more than I would be had I still been wearing contact lenses.

I filled out their online appointment form, and they got back to me pretty freaking fast. It was amusing the spots at which they were surprised that I was very well-prepared information-wise ;) So, I've got an appointment on April 20. Hopefully, my eye won't still be recovering its shape (unless it's to get better eyesight) by that point.