My LASIK Experience Part Two
The first 48 hours...
Well, I didn't have to show-off my elite Kung-Fu skills to the staff of Whitsett Vision Group Friday, which is another way of saying all is well. But this post would be no good without all the nitty-gritty details, so let's start at the beginning...
After fighting traffic, arriving, and signing paperwork saying I was having an elective procedure, I was given 10mg of Valium and then taken to the little pre-op area where all of us soon-to-be lasered people wait our respective turn. We also got to wear little booties over our shoes, as well as shower caps — but we didn't have to don the cap until we went in.
Anyway, while I waited my turn, I was able to watch the patients ahead of me through a big observation window, so that was cool. I kept waiting to hear the Doctor or nurse say something like "my bad," but no one ever did. All in all, I got to see 2 people get their vision corrected before it was my turn.
By this time, the Valium had kicked-in, but I wasn't totally out of it — but I was comfortable. Fully aware and able to carry on a complete conversation, but relaxed like I was on the verge of being able to go to sleep if left alone in a quiet room. A nurse called me in, I was taken to operating table — which was more like a dentist's chair — and the Doc put some drops in my eyes. In a couple of minutes, he helped me lay down — then the fun began.
For whatever reason, he said we were going to cut the corneal flap on my right eye, then fix my left eye, then come back on finish the right. That sounded good to me, so I gave him the "OK" and he taped my left eye shut. Yep, he just slapped tape over my eye.
Now, this part was really the only physically uncomfortable part of the whole process, so I'll do my best to explain it in graphic detail (you know me). Imagine, if you will, a pipe roughly 1 inch in diameter. One end of the pipe is attached to the floor, and the other end is facing you as you sit and look down into it. Now imagine a ping-pong ball full of something like a small nuclear charge or the Ebola virus. You are in charge of this ping-pong ball, and you are to hold it in place — over and against — the opening of the pipe as the force-pressure of a fire hose attempts send this orb of death and doom hurtling onto its path to the obliteration of Mankind.
As you can (hopefully) imagine, you'd be leaning onto that little sucker pretty good, and that's pretty much what the ol' Doc was doing to hold my right eyeball in place so that the laser could cut the corneal flap. I had the mental image of him leaning into my head with all his weight, forcing my eyeball back into my head while keeping it stationary. This took 20 seconds, and the nurse was kind enough to count down — which helped me sit through it. I was able to tell myself 10 more seconds, 5 more seconds, etc. — and yes, those seconds did matter.
Now, I don't want to scare anyone away form having this procedure — but I want to make it real, too. I have a fairly high pain tolerance in that I can ignore pain after realizing I have it. That said, I can't really say what I experienced in that 20 seconds was painful per se. It was just an extremely uncomfortable sensation of pressure, dancing on the line of me needing to squeeze my right hand with my left to distract myself, the whole time really, really wanting him to stop. I didn't get panicky, I didn't want to scream for him to stop, the discomfort didn't make me nauseated or anything like that — but it was, without a doubt, extremely unpleasant. But again, when the nurse began counting down, I was able to count with her, knowing that in a few short (long) seconds, it would all be over. And when it was, the pressure immediately sopped and all was well. If I recall correctly, I think realized I had been holding my breath the whole time, too.
After the above corneal flap cut, we moved to my other eye — which was uncomfortable in a more psychological manner. Like I said in my other LASIK post, I got Advanced Surface Ablation in this eye to remove scar tissue on the outside of my cornea. The best analog I could give here would be the tool a dentist uses when polishing your teeth. You know what I'm talking about: the little short-bristled brush that spins and whirls across your teeth, tickling and irritating you the whole while. The ablation tool — from my perspective — was pretty much the same thing, though finer combed.
I also want you to picture those movies where you see a needle slowly moving toward someone's eye because the person's being pushed to spill some secret or suffer an poke in the eye. Only this time, the needle is a tooth polisher — and it's still moving for your eye.
So, the ablation began, and just like in Hollywood, I saw the machine slowly descending toward my eye until it totally obscured my vision. Then I felt pressure — but not uncomfortable pressure. And of course, this pressure was the spinning end of the ablation tool as it scoured the surface of my cornea, removing excess tissue like a front end loader prepping a site for building. So, the discomfort wasn't physical per se, but it was a bit physiologically uncomfortable because I knew what was going on with the hellish device was moving all around my eye willy-nilly — and enjoying it far too much. If you close your eye and simply put your finger on your iris-area — not pushing, just touching — that's about as much pressure I felt. It was the knowledge of a spinning motion, and the sound of the machine, that made it worse — as well as the momentary flash of light that meant it was temporarily stopping, only for it to black-out my vision again as it descended for more sanding..
When that was done, he cleaned the area and then had me stare at a red blob above me — then the rapid-fire "tack-tack-tack-tack" of the laser rang-out as it had its way with my cornea. This was totally painless, and the only "bad" thing about it was that I could see the bright lights in my peripheral vision so I kept fighting the urge to squint — which I couldn't because my lids were taped and clamped open. This lasering also took 20 seconds. He then popped the contact over my eye, irrigated and smoothed it, then taped my eye shut.
Now we moved back to my right eye, and we went back through the "stare at a red blob" and "tack-tack-tack-tack" of laser, and the right eye was done in 20 seconds. He slipped the corneal flap back into place — which I could see and sense through my blurred vision — and then he irrigated and used a little brush smooth out the flap, much like you do when putting window tinting on a car. Then Mr. Tape stuck my eye shut again.
The table then swung around and he removed the tape from my left eye, then he helped me get up. He commented that everything went perfectly and that I "can see I'm not blind" in my left eye. This was true. He led me out of the surgery room and into the sofa chair post-op waiting room, where I sat for a bit with my wife and Dad. A nurse then came over, put a drop in my left eye, then taped it shut. And there I waited for probably about 20 minutes until the nurse came back, removed the tape from both eyes, and led me to an exam room.
At this point, I was totally surprised I was supposed to be looking around, but I was — I guess I assumed I'd go straight to shut-eyes only, but I wasn't thinking: of course they'd want to do a post-op exam, and unless they had an x-ray vision machine, I'd have to have my eyes open. So I sat in the chair and the nurse checked out my eyes, removing a lash that I sad I felt. He said things looked great and that the Doc would be in soon — and was, seconds later. He checked things out for himself, said everything looked great, and turned me back over to the nurse after saying his goodbyes. From here, the nurse explained the various drops I'd be using for each eye, then answered our basic questions and so forth. I was then given all my goodies in a nice little travel bag and sent on my way — with an appointment for a post-op checkup Saturday morning.
I was to go home and take 2 Tylenol PMs, and sleep as long as I could. After waking up the first time, I was to begin the round of eye drop applications, then take a sleeping pill when I was ready to fully crash for the night. The Tylenol let me sleep for about 3 hours, then I got up, ate a little something, showered (neck down, only), and sat around until I was ready to crash for the night. I crashed around 10:30pm, and all went well. I was worried about waking up in pain or with my eyes dried closed, but nothing bad happened at all — I prayed that it would be uneventful, and it was. I was also given some goggles to sleep in, and they are totally cool looking — seriously. If it wasn't for the elastic band, I'd wear them as regular sunglasses:
Fast forward through the night, and I woke up at 3:30am feeling fine. My eyes weren't dry, they didn't hurt, or anything. The next thing I knew, it was 5:00am, and I was wide awake — my internal clock knew that I was supposed to apply my drops every 6 hours, so it woke me up. My wife did this for me since I hadn't familiarized myself with all the bottles yet, and then we crashed for another couple of hours before waking up to head to my post-op checkup Saturday morning.
So Saturday morning, the Doc checked everything, said it was all looking good, and told me to come back Monday for him to take another look at my left eye — and to hopefully remove the contact bandage. We'll see, though.
And that's about it for the Day of Surgery and the Post-Op Checkup, as far as the general process goes. Another amazing thing about the whole process is that it took just 8 minutes — eight minutes from the time Whisett started, to the time he led me to the recovery chair. I mean, there are people that see nothing but blurs and shadows without glasses or contacts, and eight minutes later (or so), they can see again. Amazing.
As far as my vision 48 hours on the dot after the procedure, things are still somewhat blurry. Check that. The best way to describe it would be to say that, through my right eye, things are in a soft focus — not really blurry, just soft. My left eye is seeing things with a slight motion blur (can you tell I'm a Photoshop guy?) — kind of a mix between soft focus and very slight blur. Together, my vision doesn't have sharp clarity yet, but it's getting better, and will change dramatically when the contact bandage is removed. That clear contact is kind of like putting a piece of glass against your eye and being able to notice the slight refraction, so it's physically monkeying with my vision for the time being.
That said, I'm able to watch TV, though my eyes get tired and dry after a while (expected). I can drive, read signs, etc., — I even went to the grocery store today. One cool thing was the the night I got home, after I put the first round of drops in, my left eye vision was crazy crystal clear. It was like seeing in high definition. My right eye has gotten less cloudy and become more soft focus, as I mentioned a minute ago. I also put my glasses on just to see how things would look, and everything looked just like I hoped: like I was trying to see through someone else's prescription glasses. My first thought was how bad my eyes really were, so it'll be awesome when I get over this initial adjustment.
So for now I just keep babying my eyes. No rubbing, scratching, getting them wet. I have 3 drops for my right eye, and 5 for my left. Some go in every 6 hours, and others every hour as needed. I've had no pain, no scary moments, nothing worse that feeling like I had a dry contact in my eye — and that feeling is quickly remedied with the drops. Even with my not yet perfect vision, I'm not having any eye strain headaches or discomfort.
All in all, things are going great and should only get better. While the 8 minutes I detailed above were, at times, quite uncomfortable, the outcome far outweighs the difficulties. I'd recommend that anyone with poor vision go and have a free consultation — just make sure you go to a well-known and highly reputable Doctor. After all, we're talking about your eyes here.
I'll post an update tomorrow night after hopefully having the contact bandage removed, so stay tuned for Part Three...
Well, I didn't have to show-off my elite Kung-Fu skills to the staff of Whitsett Vision Group Friday, which is another way of saying all is well. But this post would be no good without all the nitty-gritty details, so let's start at the beginning...
After fighting traffic, arriving, and signing paperwork saying I was having an elective procedure, I was given 10mg of Valium and then taken to the little pre-op area where all of us soon-to-be lasered people wait our respective turn. We also got to wear little booties over our shoes, as well as shower caps — but we didn't have to don the cap until we went in.
Anyway, while I waited my turn, I was able to watch the patients ahead of me through a big observation window, so that was cool. I kept waiting to hear the Doctor or nurse say something like "my bad," but no one ever did. All in all, I got to see 2 people get their vision corrected before it was my turn.
By this time, the Valium had kicked-in, but I wasn't totally out of it — but I was comfortable. Fully aware and able to carry on a complete conversation, but relaxed like I was on the verge of being able to go to sleep if left alone in a quiet room. A nurse called me in, I was taken to operating table — which was more like a dentist's chair — and the Doc put some drops in my eyes. In a couple of minutes, he helped me lay down — then the fun began.
For whatever reason, he said we were going to cut the corneal flap on my right eye, then fix my left eye, then come back on finish the right. That sounded good to me, so I gave him the "OK" and he taped my left eye shut. Yep, he just slapped tape over my eye.
Now, this part was really the only physically uncomfortable part of the whole process, so I'll do my best to explain it in graphic detail (you know me). Imagine, if you will, a pipe roughly 1 inch in diameter. One end of the pipe is attached to the floor, and the other end is facing you as you sit and look down into it. Now imagine a ping-pong ball full of something like a small nuclear charge or the Ebola virus. You are in charge of this ping-pong ball, and you are to hold it in place — over and against — the opening of the pipe as the force-pressure of a fire hose attempts send this orb of death and doom hurtling onto its path to the obliteration of Mankind.
As you can (hopefully) imagine, you'd be leaning onto that little sucker pretty good, and that's pretty much what the ol' Doc was doing to hold my right eyeball in place so that the laser could cut the corneal flap. I had the mental image of him leaning into my head with all his weight, forcing my eyeball back into my head while keeping it stationary. This took 20 seconds, and the nurse was kind enough to count down — which helped me sit through it. I was able to tell myself 10 more seconds, 5 more seconds, etc. — and yes, those seconds did matter.
Now, I don't want to scare anyone away form having this procedure — but I want to make it real, too. I have a fairly high pain tolerance in that I can ignore pain after realizing I have it. That said, I can't really say what I experienced in that 20 seconds was painful per se. It was just an extremely uncomfortable sensation of pressure, dancing on the line of me needing to squeeze my right hand with my left to distract myself, the whole time really, really wanting him to stop. I didn't get panicky, I didn't want to scream for him to stop, the discomfort didn't make me nauseated or anything like that — but it was, without a doubt, extremely unpleasant. But again, when the nurse began counting down, I was able to count with her, knowing that in a few short (long) seconds, it would all be over. And when it was, the pressure immediately sopped and all was well. If I recall correctly, I think realized I had been holding my breath the whole time, too.
After the above corneal flap cut, we moved to my other eye — which was uncomfortable in a more psychological manner. Like I said in my other LASIK post, I got Advanced Surface Ablation in this eye to remove scar tissue on the outside of my cornea. The best analog I could give here would be the tool a dentist uses when polishing your teeth. You know what I'm talking about: the little short-bristled brush that spins and whirls across your teeth, tickling and irritating you the whole while. The ablation tool — from my perspective — was pretty much the same thing, though finer combed.
I also want you to picture those movies where you see a needle slowly moving toward someone's eye because the person's being pushed to spill some secret or suffer an poke in the eye. Only this time, the needle is a tooth polisher — and it's still moving for your eye.
So, the ablation began, and just like in Hollywood, I saw the machine slowly descending toward my eye until it totally obscured my vision. Then I felt pressure — but not uncomfortable pressure. And of course, this pressure was the spinning end of the ablation tool as it scoured the surface of my cornea, removing excess tissue like a front end loader prepping a site for building. So, the discomfort wasn't physical per se, but it was a bit physiologically uncomfortable because I knew what was going on with the hellish device was moving all around my eye willy-nilly — and enjoying it far too much. If you close your eye and simply put your finger on your iris-area — not pushing, just touching — that's about as much pressure I felt. It was the knowledge of a spinning motion, and the sound of the machine, that made it worse — as well as the momentary flash of light that meant it was temporarily stopping, only for it to black-out my vision again as it descended for more sanding..
When that was done, he cleaned the area and then had me stare at a red blob above me — then the rapid-fire "tack-tack-tack-tack" of the laser rang-out as it had its way with my cornea. This was totally painless, and the only "bad" thing about it was that I could see the bright lights in my peripheral vision so I kept fighting the urge to squint — which I couldn't because my lids were taped and clamped open. This lasering also took 20 seconds. He then popped the contact over my eye, irrigated and smoothed it, then taped my eye shut.
Now we moved back to my right eye, and we went back through the "stare at a red blob" and "tack-tack-tack-tack" of laser, and the right eye was done in 20 seconds. He slipped the corneal flap back into place — which I could see and sense through my blurred vision — and then he irrigated and used a little brush smooth out the flap, much like you do when putting window tinting on a car. Then Mr. Tape stuck my eye shut again.
The table then swung around and he removed the tape from my left eye, then he helped me get up. He commented that everything went perfectly and that I "can see I'm not blind" in my left eye. This was true. He led me out of the surgery room and into the sofa chair post-op waiting room, where I sat for a bit with my wife and Dad. A nurse then came over, put a drop in my left eye, then taped it shut. And there I waited for probably about 20 minutes until the nurse came back, removed the tape from both eyes, and led me to an exam room.
At this point, I was totally surprised I was supposed to be looking around, but I was — I guess I assumed I'd go straight to shut-eyes only, but I wasn't thinking: of course they'd want to do a post-op exam, and unless they had an x-ray vision machine, I'd have to have my eyes open. So I sat in the chair and the nurse checked out my eyes, removing a lash that I sad I felt. He said things looked great and that the Doc would be in soon — and was, seconds later. He checked things out for himself, said everything looked great, and turned me back over to the nurse after saying his goodbyes. From here, the nurse explained the various drops I'd be using for each eye, then answered our basic questions and so forth. I was then given all my goodies in a nice little travel bag and sent on my way — with an appointment for a post-op checkup Saturday morning.
I was to go home and take 2 Tylenol PMs, and sleep as long as I could. After waking up the first time, I was to begin the round of eye drop applications, then take a sleeping pill when I was ready to fully crash for the night. The Tylenol let me sleep for about 3 hours, then I got up, ate a little something, showered (neck down, only), and sat around until I was ready to crash for the night. I crashed around 10:30pm, and all went well. I was worried about waking up in pain or with my eyes dried closed, but nothing bad happened at all — I prayed that it would be uneventful, and it was. I was also given some goggles to sleep in, and they are totally cool looking — seriously. If it wasn't for the elastic band, I'd wear them as regular sunglasses:
Fast forward through the night, and I woke up at 3:30am feeling fine. My eyes weren't dry, they didn't hurt, or anything. The next thing I knew, it was 5:00am, and I was wide awake — my internal clock knew that I was supposed to apply my drops every 6 hours, so it woke me up. My wife did this for me since I hadn't familiarized myself with all the bottles yet, and then we crashed for another couple of hours before waking up to head to my post-op checkup Saturday morning.
So Saturday morning, the Doc checked everything, said it was all looking good, and told me to come back Monday for him to take another look at my left eye — and to hopefully remove the contact bandage. We'll see, though.
And that's about it for the Day of Surgery and the Post-Op Checkup, as far as the general process goes. Another amazing thing about the whole process is that it took just 8 minutes — eight minutes from the time Whisett started, to the time he led me to the recovery chair. I mean, there are people that see nothing but blurs and shadows without glasses or contacts, and eight minutes later (or so), they can see again. Amazing.
As far as my vision 48 hours on the dot after the procedure, things are still somewhat blurry. Check that. The best way to describe it would be to say that, through my right eye, things are in a soft focus — not really blurry, just soft. My left eye is seeing things with a slight motion blur (can you tell I'm a Photoshop guy?) — kind of a mix between soft focus and very slight blur. Together, my vision doesn't have sharp clarity yet, but it's getting better, and will change dramatically when the contact bandage is removed. That clear contact is kind of like putting a piece of glass against your eye and being able to notice the slight refraction, so it's physically monkeying with my vision for the time being.
That said, I'm able to watch TV, though my eyes get tired and dry after a while (expected). I can drive, read signs, etc., — I even went to the grocery store today. One cool thing was the the night I got home, after I put the first round of drops in, my left eye vision was crazy crystal clear. It was like seeing in high definition. My right eye has gotten less cloudy and become more soft focus, as I mentioned a minute ago. I also put my glasses on just to see how things would look, and everything looked just like I hoped: like I was trying to see through someone else's prescription glasses. My first thought was how bad my eyes really were, so it'll be awesome when I get over this initial adjustment.
So for now I just keep babying my eyes. No rubbing, scratching, getting them wet. I have 3 drops for my right eye, and 5 for my left. Some go in every 6 hours, and others every hour as needed. I've had no pain, no scary moments, nothing worse that feeling like I had a dry contact in my eye — and that feeling is quickly remedied with the drops. Even with my not yet perfect vision, I'm not having any eye strain headaches or discomfort.
All in all, things are going great and should only get better. While the 8 minutes I detailed above were, at times, quite uncomfortable, the outcome far outweighs the difficulties. I'd recommend that anyone with poor vision go and have a free consultation — just make sure you go to a well-known and highly reputable Doctor. After all, we're talking about your eyes here.
I'll post an update tomorrow night after hopefully having the contact bandage removed, so stay tuned for Part Three...
posted by Maury @ 3:17 PM Permalink | 3 comments so far 
3 Comments:
Awesome.
Those glasses remind me of the pair that Vin Diesel wore in "The Chronicles of Riddick."
Glad it worked out for you. We were praying for you. And the doc. No need for bloodshed.
Awesome description. I went expecting Lasik and ended up needing ASA in both eyes...total shocker. They said they changed their protocol on "marginal cantidates" as a result of my frustration with that lack of knowledge.
Today is day 14, and I'm still not great at computer or read magazine print. How long did it take you to get great reading vision? I guess it varies person to person, but I'm wondering how much it "keeps getting better" each day.
I'm afraid of stalling out! Go to see the dr. tomorrow for another check-up, but I expect more "wait and see". That part is hard...the patience.
Your glasses were MUCH cooler than mine! No fair.
(Comment in answer on my blog if you wish..I'd welcome it.)
Post a Comment
<< Home