Marathon Me

I now have super powers previously only dreamed of. I am capable of seeing an alarm clock in the middle of the night, I can wake up and let the dogs outside without bumping into walls, I can see the scores at the football games on the opposite side of the stadium, and leap small buildings in a single bound. Okay, I lied about that last one, but the others are all true.

Last Wednesday I went in front of the laser for PRK Laser Eye Surgery. This is a similar procedure to Lasik and the lasers that burn away reshape your eye are the same. The main difference is in Lasik they cut a small flap in your cornea and fold it back and then zap your eyes. In PRK they grind/shave of .46 microns of your cornea then zap your eyes, finishing up by putting on a clear contact lens to protect your eyes from dirt and debris. I would need to wear the contact for about 7 days.

I’ve worn contacts off and on for the last 20 years or so and never been a huge fan. The times I’ve actually slept in them have been highly irritating upon waking. So the thought of leaving the same pair of contacts in my eye for a week wasn’t exactly appealing.

I wasn’t a candidate for Lasik because my corneas were too steep, but since PRK uses the same melting laser process I figured it would be okay.

I checked into to the clinic Wednesday morning after signing my life away; apparently it’s possible by having laser surgery that I could be causing Global Warming and massive famine among other possible side affects. As the doctor was going over the procedure I yawned, and he mentioned that the Valium must be working, but no I was just tired, I hadn’t received any Valium. The doctor remedied this situation and Valum-ed me up. He thought that since I was so relaxed I must have already had my Valium. He said that a lot of people are really nervous and the Valium helps them, but that its main purpose was to make you sleepy so you take a nap when you get home for a few hours. Fast forward to about 90 minutes later and I was fast asleep. Plus one for the Valium.

After getting hopped up (toned down?) on the Valium, they gave me a sexy blue hairnet to wear. Let me tell you I was fighting off all the nurses at this point … Or maybe not. They led me into the operating room and then went all David Banner on me, shining a laser line down the center of my face.

But instead of turning me into the Incredible Hulk, they made me hold a huge stuffed dog. So this is me rocking the hair net holding a big stuffed puppy. Good times, good times.

The whole procedure took less than ten minutes from the time I went into the operating room until I was all done.

After lying down on the gurney and holding onto Under Dog, they fitted me with Clockwork Orange devices to hold my eyelids open. Luckily I wasn’t subjected to crazy images of violence, just a bright white light.

The first phase involved putting, what I will call a grinder, on my eye. This was the weirdest part as my vision just went black while they grinded off the .46 microns of cornea they needed to remove to be able to zap my eyes. Then it went bright white as the began to polish my eye ball. This was like looking into the sun, while a smaller sun was rubbed back and forth across my eye ball. The best I’ve been able to represent it is like this:

Here is a short video Shelley was able to take before the technicians gave her the Stink Eye and made her stop.

My right eye took about 13-14 seconds of “lasering” to fix. The laser makes a series of clicking sounds as it turns rapidly on and off vaporizing part of my eye. My right eye would take about 7-8 seconds as it sucked less needed less work to make it better. After words they finish by rinsing your eye out with a very cold sterile saline solution to sterilize the eye and to reduce the swelling. This didn’t bother my right eye at all, but when it was time to do the left eye, I heard a nurse say

Nurse: This one just ran out, and this one is almost frozen
Doctor: Should be fine

Then my eye got really, really cold and it felt like I had a brain freeze right in my eye. It didn’t feel pleasant at all. But it only lasted for about 2 seconds and then it was over. Shelley drove me home and I took a nap. At this point I couldn’t read my BlackBerry or look at a computer screen.

Thursday morning I went in for my post-operative check up and my vision had gone from:

Right Eye: 20×400
Left Eye: 20×200

to new and improved eyes:

Right Eye: 20×50
Left Eye: 20×30

But it was still slightly blurry. My vision basically looked like this for the first day or two:

I was able to read the screen in short bursts after taking my laptop screen resolution down from 1680×1050 to 800×600. It was quite funny to see fonts this large.

Friday night I was able to read Christopher a book at bedtime, but I had to keep it to a fairly short book.

By Saturday morning I could read the paper in short bouts. I could do 2-3 minutes of reading with a 2-3 minute break in between. Saturday evening we all went to the Texas Longhorns football game against the local High School team Florida Atlantic University and I was able to watch the game and see the players. My eyes were so good I was clearly able to see all the bad calls and helpfully shouted out to the refs letting them know when they had gotten it wrong. Just a small service I provide at games. By Sunday I was able to read the paper all the way through without issue.

Today I have perfect close vision and my long vision is almost perfect. I’m hoping that one more good night of sleep and I’ll be all set. My eyes will have had 6 days for the corneas to grow back and clear up my vision. I have a check up in the morning where I get to remove the protective clear contact lens and then it will be all me.

Each day I gain some new super power like reading the alarm clock, but sadly I am still unable to see through my wife’s clothes, and I’m pretty sure that was part of the ad I had seen, but maybe I’m confusing that with something else I’ve recently ordered that still hasn’t come in yet.

All of my friends who have had the surgery done all love it, and I think I’m rapidly approaching the same conclusion. It’s so nice to be able to see clearly without glasses and without having to worry about contact lenses and all the other hassles. I’m just hoping that 10 years down the road I don’t go blind as a horrible side affect.

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