Let's laser me a little piggy!

 

Well I finally had it done!!  Yes Lasik eye surgery, and I am extremely impressed. I CAN SEE!  IT'S A MIRACLE!!!

 

The surgery went really well, however I was very nervous about it.  Not about them sending me blind, as that is a very very slim outcome.  But more having to be awake while they chop into my eyeball...  EWWW! 

 

So the morning arrives and we get into the clinic where they will be doing the surgery and have all the last minutes checks to ensure that I was still a viable candidate, and fill out all the paperwork.  It's all a go, so I pay the money!  Boo hoo hoo hoo!  Now I am very very poor.  Well poorer than usual.   So Phil takes the kids off to keep them amused, they give me the valium that is to keep you calm during the procedure and I wait for my surgery appointment...  By the way LOVING the new channel GO, it is like my kind of TV heaven!  All the rubbish I like to watch...  Anyway, getting off track....  They call me up, and give me the sexiest white tissue paper looking gown to wear, one of those beautiful blue surgical caps to keep your hair back, and the matching blue booties to go over my shoes...  Man was I sexy!!  But obviously not quite sexy enough, they then paint the top part of my face in iodine!  Soooo then I looked like I was jaundiced...   They drop in some numbing eye drops, which according to the Ophthalmologist will make my eye feel weird.  Yes she said weird was the technical term...  Anyway by this stage the valium is setting in...  Making me feel like I was kind of drunk...  Not sure if this is the expected result, but obviously how it effects me, and like when I'm drunk I'm all chatty and giggly!  Yes I felt sorry for the Dr's as well.  They are just lucky I didn't start declaring my love and hugging them. 

 

So they take me in and lay me on the table where there is some huge contraption hanging over my head with lights so bright I swear they've got me staring directly at the sun.  But then I figure I want the Dr to be able to see when he slices the top of my eyeball off, so I don't complain.  They start with the right eye and using what felt like giant pieces of sticky tape tape back my eyelashes top and bottom, then I assume they inserted the little metal thingies that make you stop blinking as it felt like they shoved something metal under my eyelids.  They drop in some more numbing drops just for luck, and then poke around with some sticks to make sure that they are actually working.  Then the get to the cutting part... GULP!  The Dr tells me to watch the little red light then lowers what looks like a metal ring onto my eyeball and pushes down, HARD!  Now I wouldn't say it was ultra painful but it wasn't painless and it certainly wasn't comfortable, kind of like my eyeball was trying to pop, and the start of a migraine all in one.  He then tells me that the next part may sting a bit!  And I think, WHAT??  You mean it gets more painful?? (I might add on a scale of 1 to 10 where childbirth is a 10 it's probably about a 0.5 so don't feel too sympathetic)  Then there is a noise, now in my mind it was a SLURP, SLURP! as it cut into the gooey softness of my eye, however in hindsight I'm sure it was more of a mechanical clicking as he twisted the little blade thingos!  They than remove the metal ring and I'm staring at the little red light again, until he lifts the flap of the eye and the little red light turns into a red mist!!  So I'm assuming that if they lost that little flap of eye, the patient would be stuffed!   Then the laser started, the Dr's were talking among themselves about technical things like, 3 rounds, and then counting down from 20.  As the laser starts to buzz.  And I'm thinking this is all good, apart from the fact that it smelt like burning hair...  Now I'm lying there and trying to decide if it is just a bi-product from the laser or if it was actually my eyeball being cooked to a nice turkey brown.  But the the laser is finished the Dr flips my eye back over pokes it a couple of times with his little stick to get it sitting right and then uses what looks like the smallest squeegee on the planet to smooth it down.  Then they unhook my eyelids peel of the sticky tape stuff holding my eyelashes back, and it's wash, rinse, repeat....  All up the operation felt like it took about 3 mins, but I'm assuming it was more like 15, and I'm all de-iodinised and cleaned up and ready to go home, with my sexy eye guards so I can't knock the eye...   Once home Phil doped me up on sleeping pills, waking me every 3 hours to put in a plethora of eye drops to fight infection, inflammation and to keep them moist.  I was told to keep them closed for at least 4 hours, which was fairly easy as when opened they felt gritty, reminiscent of the feeling when an eyelash would get stuck under your contact.  When I woke up and 10pm they felt as good as new, although I still had to leave my sexy eye guards on, My post operative appointment was the next morning where they confirmed it was all good, and gave me strict instructions not to rub or knock my eyes for the next week, or wear eye makeup (not really a problem since it's a special day that I wear any), and to sleep with the eye guards for a week!  Anyway...  I get home and within 3 hours I've rubbed my eye as it was itchy!  Then spent the next 2 hours staring a mirror trying to work out if I've dislodged the healing eye flap!!  Thankfully I think it's all good.  However had never realised just how many times my kids poke, bump or grab at my eyes...  I'm contemplating wearing the eye guards 24/7 apart from the fact they make everything blurry, and I didn't just pay that much money to still see the world with furry edges!

 

So now I'm all good, with better than 20/20 vision, I'd definitely recommend it for everyone who is thinking about it.  It was sooo good donating my glasses, and thinking I will never need those little suckers again! Well hopefully...

 

So until the next adventure...