I Seriously Got LASIK Eye Surgery

All throughout this LASIK process I couldn’t quit wondering who in the world had the idea of lasering off a layer of one’s eye in order to help that individual see as good as new. It truly blows my mind that someone ever thought to come up with this, so I had to do my research and see who I owe thanks to!

Turns out that the very first laser vision correction procedure happened back in 1988 by surgeon Marguerite McDonald on a 60 year old woman with serious vision problems. It was from this surgery that European doctors Loannis Pallikaris and Lucio Burrato worked on a way to optimize laser eye surgery. They discovered that creating a flap in the cornea helped minimize post-surgery discomfort and sped up the healing process. Their discovery was the beginning of LASIK eye surgery as we know it today, and was approved for use in the United States in 1999. THANK YOU to all those incredible inventors who paved one pathway after another to bring me to where I am today. I cannot thank them all enough!

Speaking of thanks, thankfully my mom is currently living her best life and not working, so I had her take me to get my eyes lasered up on Thursday, March 3 at 1:00 p.m.. This was a real blessing because it prevented my beautiful Melissa from having to take a day off work to wait on me to get my surgery. Yes, I was in and out of that office in forty-five minutes, so the wait was minimal, plus my mom and I maximized our time in Chesterfield with a visit to the Butterfly House at Faust Park and lunch at The Cheesecake Factory before hand.

Upon my arrival the receptionist had me sit down at this small table off to the side of the main desk to go over all the official forms. After signing each one, they charged my new CareCredit credit card, which mind you I got 0% interest for the next 12 months on! Again, the cost was less than $3,900, so not even bad at all. She then provided me with a bunch of post-surgery eye drops that I’m to use for the next several weeks and from there led me back to a room where I patiently waited on the surgical doctor to come join me.

The doctor was awesome and wasted no time in filling out the paperwork necessary for me to take my Leave of Absence from work. I wasn’t about to get the first surgery of my entire life and not take a week and a half off from work. They warned me in the consultation that I might need a week to truly recover since my eyes were so horrible, so I figured eleven days was the ideal amount of time to recuperate. From there he talked me through the procedure and warned me of possible ailments that may befall my eyes once it was all over. After acknowledging and agreeing to everything he led me into the operating room.

The room wasn’t too large in size, but because there was only a grey bed in the center angled towards the door with a misshapen machine hovering over the backside of it, the room appeared much larger. The nurse invited me to lie down on the grey bed with my head falling slightly backwards into the round disc on the back. Much to my dismay there was this European techno music playing and initially I thought about requesting they change it to something more relaxing – like obviously Céline Dion – but thought that it really didn’t matter if I was relaxed, I wasn’t performing the surgery, it only mattered if the doctor was relaxed, so I opted to say nothing and just deal with the sounds of stress from this dark-infused rave music. In my mind I conceived this horror film mashup of Hostel (Americans who get brutally murdered while staying at European hostels) and Final Destination (you can’t cheat death) and imagined that this is the type of music that’d be playing if someone was about to die during LASIK eye surgery. Oh well, ultimately I remained unphased. Just laser me up, doc!

The doctor entered the room from an alternate door and sat down right behind me, promptly beginning the operation. He placed an eyepatch over my left eye and focused the machine over my right. It came down and applied a great deal of pressure to my right eye, this was so much more pressuring than the test they gave me during my consultation, but nonetheless, I remained calm and focused on the green light as instructed. Then when the time came, the eyepatch was removed from my left eye and placed over my right, allowing the machine to do the same thing to my left eye.

Following this one, two step, the doctor placed the patch back over my left eye and then a metallic circle was placed around my right eye, this was to prevent me from blinking. The doctor then informed me that he would now be lasering and within moments I could smell that he was right.

The faint scent of burning filled my nostrils and I knew then that this was the moment I’d been waiting years for, I was finally getting LASIK. It was definitely gross smelling my eyeball being seared, but I’m not even going to lie, this smell excited the shit out of me – thankfully though not literally.

He complimented me and said I did perfectly with my right eye and now he would be moving on to the left, but as soon as he did, he asked I keep my right eye open this time versus shutting it like I had just done with my left. This shouldn’t have been difficult, but it stressed me greatly. He said I was blinking an excessive amount and that I just needed to relax. I was making myself a nervous wreck, but with his words I took several deep breaths and grasped on tightly to the ends of my cardigan, thankfully this helped me calm down. At one point he stated it’d all be over in ten seconds and I counted myself down to relief. The work on my left eye really stressed the fuck out of me, but ultimately it was all over and done pretty quickly.

After each eye was lasered up, he had this little tool that he used to keep pressing down on my eyeballs with. I can only assume this was to refasten the flap back to my eye because I could tell that he was gently pressing in a circular motion. Thank goodness he had his European techno rave music to keep his hands steady because this was a wild moment to just lay there and spectate!

Soon after all that the nurse told me I was all done and good to go! This was just so wild to my ears and eyes! I stood up and saw the room in an infinitely better manner than I did when entering it. Sure everything was foggy and cloudy, but nonetheless, I could see everything as I never had before! After thanking the nurse and doctor I walked out of the surgery room, grabbed my green tote of eye drops and papers, and waltzed right out of their office.

I went straight to the restroom, not because I had to poop, although I initially envisioned I would have to, but because I needed to wash my hands. They’d gotten so clammy from the stress of that left eye that a wash was mandatory. Once in front of the mirror I noticed I still had my hairnet on, but was blown away by the mere fact that I could even see that I still had that hairnet on! I instantly took what became my first post-LASIK selfie. What a moment! I then left the building and met my mom at her minivan in the parking lot outside.

It was sunny as could be out, so thank the Lord for their sunglasses! Them beaming sun rays hurt my eyes something fierce! Despite being wide awake, I rode the entire way back to Cutesville with my eyes closed because that sun wasn’t playing. Once home, I took what became a four and a half hour nap and when I woke I immediately put my prescribed eye drops in. Heeding the warnings about light sensitivity, I dropped them in my eyes from the darkened hallway with my room lit up behind me. I noticed though that my eyes were unbothered by the light, so cautiously, I stepped back into my room.

It was a LASIK miracle, the light didn’t bother my eyes whatsoever and I spent the rest of that night in the well-lit kitchen with Melissa and Nancy as they baked and decorated a cake and then Melissa and I watched a couple episodes of our current show, Schitt’s Creek. I couldn’t believe how unbothered my eyes were by all the light around me. It was truly amazing! Now yes, my right eye has some blood in it, but it looks so much worse than it feels because I feel nothing, yet it looks like shit!

When I woke the next morning I felt as good as ever and instantly noticed while lying there in bed the lines between the blinds. Normally they looked like a blob of beige, but with my new eyes I could see the lines that make up each individual blind. I was shook. This was so simple and seemingly meaningless, but felt pretty meaningful. I’d literally never noticed this before. Then I went and took a shower and this was the very first time I could see anything fully in there! The cracks on my shampoo bottles label, the labels of the shampoo bottles, and all else! This was wild! I’d never once obviously showered with my glasses on, so normally I was in there half blind, so this moment was a real blessing. The entire day and everyone since has been filled with these precious moments! Being able to actually see with my own eyes is something I’d only ever dreamt of prior to last week! Being here now and living that dream is just unreal. I couldn’t be more thankful to all those doctors who did what they did to get me to where I am today. LASIK really is simply the best!

Well, as always, THANK YOU so much for viewing! Please feel free to leave me a comment below as I LOVE reading and responding to them! I’ll be back next week with another all-new blog post, so until then, I wish you all, all the best!