Fun with LaserZ

Yay.. I can see! The laser surgery was a sucess….well….in progress.

The whole thing started with going to the doctors office last Thursday, handing over a giant cheque and then taking a valium. The doctor has a glass room with all the equipment in it that he uses to do the procedure. So family members, friends, and nosy strangers like myself can watch while others are getting it done. I watched a couple of people before me and thanked Allah that prescription drugs are condoned. There are basically 2 different kinds of laser eye surgery you can get. Lasik and PRK. Lasik involves cutting the cornea, peeling it back and then getting zapped. The cornea flap is then replaced and the eye immediately begins to heal itself. The procedure takes 3 minutes max, and the recovery time is 24 hours. I was not an eligible candidate for Lasik because my corneas are too thin. So the alternative is to get PRK. PRK involves taking this rotating floor buffer type machine and literally scraping away the surface of the cornea and removing the cells. Then the eye is zapped and a contact lens like a band-aid is placed over the eye. The recovery time is about 3 days as the eye grows back the surface of the cornea. My roommate came with me to get the procedure and she said that she saw smoke tendrils come up when I got my eyes zapped – awesome. I made it home OK afterwards with little incidence… took a painkiller and passed out. Woke up and felt REALLY nauseous, forced some stale bread down and went back to sleep. The next morning I had to go back to the Doctors office for a post op check up which revealed that “everything seemed normal”. Still under the effects of the nauseating painkiller, the morning went by just fine. Then I decided, under the advice of the doctor, to take just tylenol instead of the vicadin since it was making me sick. WORST IDEA EVER. Friday was possibly the most painful day of my life. You know when you are cutting an onion and your eyes begin to burn… then your eyes tear up and the pain eventually subsides?.. well imagine if that pain did not go away.. no matter what you did… the entire day and night was spent basically wanting to pull my eyes out with a fork just to end the pain. On saturday, I said nausea be damned, i’m taking the pain killers! Sunday was the first day I was able to keep my eyes open longer than a few minutes and not cringe. It was glorious… I could see. Now almost a week later, my vision is almost as good as when I would wear my glasses or contact lenses, and will only continue to get better as my eyes continue to heal…. however my life has become a serious freak fest… I have to wear these goggles when I shower:

I have to wear these goggles when I sleep (and they are seriously bruising my nose!)

And the doctors office gave me these hot sunglasses to wear when outside (the combover was my idea.. I’ll admit that)

And now my roommates insist I wear this whenever we go out in public

Hehe.. I josh. Thats a giant picture of Dwight Shrute. I couldn’t resist.