My Journey to LASIK

Posted January 10th, 2006 by Michelle

About a month ago, I figured out that I can’t really save the world if I have to stop and clean my contacts, so I’ve decided to swallow my fears (and a fair amount of debt) in order to get eye surgery. It’s all still pretty confusing to me how it works- I mean, I understand that they cut a flap of my eyeball and then squirrel around in there and then replace the flap, or somesuch other ridiculous thing- but if it means I don’t ever have to buy contacts again (or at least not for a decade or so), if it means I don’t have to put a small plastic disk onto my eyeball just to function every single day, the it’s worth it.

The first misconception about LASIK is that it’s become cheap. WRONG. There are hacks up and down the country willing to do it for about $500 an eye, but do you want a hack near your eyeball with a laser? Nope, not me. I’m going to the highest-rated doctor in the Bay Area, someone who has successfully sliced the eyeballs of three different people I know. The cost? Just under $5000. I don’t know if that really works out- I doubt I’d spend that much money in the next ten years on eye exams and contacts, but maybe. And considering the events I’ve missed, the hours lost, because of a dropped contact or the lodging of a plank between my contact and eyeball, it is well worth it. And as I said, I can’t save the world if I have to stop to buy saline solution. So LASIK it is.

I had my first doctor appointment before the holidays. The doctor I’m seeing for the first two appointments is the referring doctor, not the slicer, but he also came highly recommended. He’s young, mildly handsome, very well coiffed, and minced no words. He turned down the lights, handed me the thing shaped like a flat ice cream scoop and asked me to put it over my left eye. Even with my contacts in, I could barely make out the top line on the wall. Next, the scoop went over my right eye, and then I was lost. Even so, he said that he was stunned that I could see as well as I did, considering a) the amount of guck on my contacts (gross!) and b) how massively misshapen my left eye is (oh, astigmatism, how delightful thou art not). I asked him if I needed a new contact prescription, and he said no, that I was seeing as well with these as I could see with anything else.

Then he popped out my contacts, and the quiet terror set in. I can’t stand being blind, even if it’s to sit and talk to a doctor for fifteen minutes. He spent a fair amount of time running all the usual tests (including putting that yellow crud into my eyes to check for various problems). At the end, he told me I was the candidate (because of the size of my pupils) for the most advanced type of LASIK. It doesn’t cost any more, but apparently they shoot about a billion fragments of light into your eyes, which is measured by a laser, which makes the surgery even more precise.

Finally, we were almost done when he dropped the bomb. “Now, before your next appointment, you’ll need to take out your contacts and leave them out for three weeks. You have a good pair of glasses, don’t you?” I think the horror on my face was crystal clear, because he backed up and said, “Okay, how about two weeks? We can’t go any further until we test your eyes again, and we can’t test your eyes until you’ve not worn contacts for at least two weeks.” I told him I’d see him two weeks after New Years, that there was no way in bloody hell I was going to wear glasses on my vacation.

So here I am, one week into wearing my glasses. And I’m utterly miserable. I hate that there is this thing, hanging on my face, this metal contraption that makes me feel all walleyed. I hate that I have no peripheral vision. I feel like I can’t really see people, that I can’t really connect- how could I? There’s a metal thing on my face! And to be honest, it makes me feel shy, and odd. I’m scared I’ll step on them, but at the same time, I want to jump up and down on them, smashing them to pieces. I don’t feel like myself. A friend, trying to console me, told me I look like a hot librarian. But I don’t want to look like a hot librarian, I want to look (and more importantly, FEEL) like me, which I don’t. It’s strange how strongly I’m reacting to these glasses.

My next appointment is a week from today, where Mr. Mildly Handsome will dilate my eyes, and where I’ll finally be able to reinsert the dreaded plastic discs one more time. And, if all goes well, I’ll be able to set the date for my pre-surgery exam down in Berkeley, where the slicing will take place.

And yes, I’m terrified of the complications, and uncomfortable with the debt, but it is still 100% worth it. Just to be able to wake up, and see. And to be able to save the world.