This morning I spent some of my inheritance early and got Lasik on both eyes. I've been wanting to get my eyes done FOREVER! I detest wearing glasses, and contacts are a total pain the ass. About a month before Katrina hit I was whining to my sister about how I wanted to get Lasik and how we just couldn't swing the cost of it and she suggested I ask our mother for the money--an early piece of the inheritance pie.

So I called Mom up and explained that I knew that she planned on living forever, but that I would dearly love to get Lasik, and that if I waited for her to kick off I'd be more of a candidate for cataract surgery, and so could I please have a small portion of my inheritance early? And fortunately, she was agreeable!

After Katrina came through it became even more crucial. I ended up getting two lovely eye infections from wearing my contacts for extended periods of time during evacuations and then the long working hours afterward. When things finally settled down a bit I found a clinic in town that did Lasik, and went and got a consultation.

Turned out that I was a perfect candidate. I'm near-sighted and astigmatic, and my vision is crappy, but not so horrendously crappy that they'd be carving my cornea down to the retina to fix it. I went through a series of measurements and exams, and finally this morning at 7am I drove over to Metairie for the actual procedure.

I was there for about an hour. I signed in, signed consent forms, took the Valium they gave me, and then sat and waited about 20 minutes. Then they brought me to the back, had me lie down on a table, secured my head with some cushions, and gave me Laser Monkey to hold. (Laser Monkey is a stuffed monkey that they have people hold, because it tends to keep people from reaching up to their eyes during the surgery.)

The doctor had obviously done a few thousand of these before, and he talked to me the entire time, explaining what he was bout to do, what he was going to do, what to expect, the whole nine yards. There was a blinking light I had to look at, and at one point I must not have been looking exactly at it, because a nurse gently told me to look right at the light. And that reassured me too, since that meant that I wouldn't screw it up by looking away or something. They put numbing drops in my eye, then literally wiped my eye down to dry it out. That was weird, but I really couldn't feel anything but strange pressure. Some more drops, then they put the eyelid stretchy thingy on, which was nowhere near as uncomfortable as I thought it would be. Then he did something... not sure what it was... but I think he put something right on my eye, I guess to hold it in place, because he told me that my vision would fade, and it did, kinda like it does if you press your fingers against your eyelids and when you open them it takes a second for you to see again.

Then came the Science Fiction part. The pressure on my eye retreated and I could see the blinking light again, then a woman off to the side said, "Laser ready, in 17 seconds." And I almost laughed at how much it sounded like the computer on Star Trek. Then there was a bit of a click and buzz, and... that was it.

Lather rinse repeat on the other eye. The whole process for both eyes took about five minutes.

The doctor helped me sit up, and asked me if I could see the clock. I could, but no, you really can't see miraculously clearly instantly, and I informed him that it was all fuzzy. "That's normal, and will clear up during the day." Then I was taken to a darkened room to sit in an easy chair for a few minutes. I was given post-op instructions, given some seriously dark sunglasses since I could expect to be fairly light-sensitive for the next couple of days, and then told to go home and take a 2 hour nap (which apparently jump-starts the healing process.)

"Light-sensitive" doesn't really do it justice. On the drive home I had my eyes closed, the sunglasses on, and my jacket over my head to keep the light out of my eyes. I got home, taped the plastic eyeguards over my eyes that I have to sleep in for 3 days (to keep from rubbing my eyes during sleep agains the pillow) and then crashed.

I woke up three hours later. I took the eyeguards off, and discovered that not only had the light-sensitivity decreased dramatically (which leads me to believe that they had dilated my eyes for the surgery) but that I could See.

There are leaves on the trees. I can read a book. This is so cool. I still have some haze in my vision, but they told me that is totally normal and will fade in the next few weeks. But, at this point, if my vision never improves from what I have right now, it will still have been worth it. Right now I think I see better than I ever did with any prescription glasses or contacts I have ever had. I have no pain or itching or burning. I have to put drops in my eyes fairly regularly for the next week or so, and I can't wear eye-makeup for five days (which was almost a deal-breaker for me! [g])

So very worth it. It truly rocks being able to see.