...thanks to the miracle of LASIK! I'm now 4 days post-op and have 20/20 vision. I have no clue what it was before, though. For memory's sake, I would like to journal a little bit about the experience.
Thursday, May 2 - LASIK. My very generous sister, Brandi, graciously agreed to come stay with me and be my nurse/driver. We arrived at the doctor's office at noon. I had a series of test and exams, then waited what seemed like forever. Thankfully, Brandi and I talked and kept each other entertained. By that point, we were both starving. I had eaten breakfast then a banana mid-morning and didn't eat lunch just in case something made me feel queasy. Brandi was allowed to be in the exam room with me and even got to watch the surgery. A little while before the surgery, an assistant came in with a Valium and a Tylenol. I took those then went into a quiet, dark room to lie down and let the drugs do their thing. After a while, the doctor came in to get me and took me to the surgery room. I laid down on the table and they gave me a beany baby to hold. At that point, I couldn't really tell if the Valium had kicked in or not. I was feeling pretty anxious. They started with my right eye. Since I was awake, I could "see" everything they were doing. As she was doing things, the doctor explained what was happening. As I was "watching" what was happening on my right eye, I felt pretty sure that the Valium had not worked. I was too aware of what was happening. I had a death grip on that beany baby. The doctor seemed to be taking a while doing something and said she was trying to "smooth out some bubbles." She scraped my eye for what seemed like forever. It finally stopped and they moved me over to prep the left eye. I took a deep breath and the doctor asked if I was OK. I said yes, but it must not have been believable. She said "are you scared to death?" and I said yes! I didn't know if I would make it through having the left eye done. Thankfully, there wasn't the same bubble issue as the right eye and the left eye was done in no time. They took me back into an exam room to sit for a few minutes and sent Brandi downstairs to the pharmacy to get my eye drops. I pretty much just kept my eyes closed and, when I did open them, everything was hazy and bright. The doctor came in for a quick check and said they had put a contact on my right eye to act as a bandage since there was so much work done on it. They gave me another Valium to take when I got home and said just to try to sleep for the rest of the day. They sent us on our way with instructions to come back at 8 am Friday morning.
Brandi and I stopped at Dairy Queen on the way home. We got some chicken fingers and fries to share. Once we got back to my place, I took the other Valium and two Tylenol and went to bed. It was about 3:15 pm. By about 4 pm, I as awake and not doing too well. My eyes were burning and hurting and watering profusely. Nothing was helping. I tried sitting up for a while with a cold cloth over my eyes. That would soothe them for a second then the burning took over. It really upset me and I was feeling very anxious. Brandi called the doctor's office and told them what was happening. They said it was all normal and the best thing would be for me to go to sleep. Easy for them to say. Brandi found some NyQuil in my medicine cabinet and told me to try that. I took it and went to sleep. Note to self: Valium doesn't work well on you! Brandi woke me up and while later and said it was time for drops. It was 7:30!! I was shocked that I had slept that long. I was already feeling/seeing much better. We did the drops, ate a little dinner that a friend brought over, then I went back to sleep. I woke up at 10 pm and was feeling/seeing even better. We did the drops again and I took some Benedryl to help make sure I would sleep. I slept till about 7 am the next morning and woke up feeling/seeing great. If only I had been able to sleep through that rough part, everything would have been perfect!
Brandi and I headed back to the doctor's office for a checkup. The doctor looked in both my eyes and said everything looked OK. He did ask the assistant to get the surgeon to look at a "spot" on my left eye. She came in to look. She said it was OK to remove the contact on my right eye and that she needed to do something to that spot on the left eye. The assistant put some sort of drop in my left eye and the doctor pressed (or something) to the spot. She told me to stop by this morning for them to recheck that spot. None of them were acting like it was a big deal, so I tried to just go with that attitude. They added a 4th drop to my rotation and sent me on my way.
I took it easy all weekend and put drops in continuously. When I went back this morning, the spot on my left eye was fine. There was some "loose tissue" on my right eye that the doctor scraped off. Again, no one acted like it was a big deal so that's what I went with. My right eye has felt a little weird, but maybe I'm just being overly sensitive about it. I have to go back for another recheck on Thursday afternoon, so I will just continue with the drops and taking it easy until someone tells me to do otherwise.
Overall, it's been an interesting experience not exactly as expected. I think I would feel differently if the Valium had worked and the Thursday afternoon/evening experience had been a little different. I would definitely do it again and recommend it - though, I would advise that you have something you are positive will make you relax and sleep.
I'll update again after my next recheck. Cheers to 20/20 vision!
No comments:
Post a Comment