I started having vision problems when I was 9 years old. That means for the last 17 years I’ve been wearing glasses or contacts. That’s 17 years worth of panic when I can’t find my glasses in the morning. 17 years of praying I don’t trip over my own two feet and break my glasses. 17 years of the slightest scratch marring my vision until I can afford a new pair. But all that is in the past now. Yesterday I wiped out my savings account and got something priceless in return: my sight.

I admit I was extremely nervous at the idea of getting LASIK surgery. The idea of my eye being sliced and having a laser aimed at it is a bit freaky. But ultimately, I decided 15 minutes of ickiness would be worth it and within 12 hours I realized it was.

The procedure wasn’t my favorite thing ever, but it also wasn’t that bad. When I got to the doctor’s office, they took me into a regular exam room for pre-op. There they put some numbing drops in my eyes and told me exactly what was going to happen. The one thing I was kinda freaked about was what if my eye moved during the surgery. Would I end up burning a line across my eye? I was quickly reassured that was not a possibility as the laser has a built in tracker to move with my eye and to shut off if my eye moved too much. After the nurse went over that, the doc came in to give me a small dose of valium to relax me and led me into the room where my surgery would take place.

In there, I got to sit and listen while they re-calibrated the machine. They did this so I would know what it sounds like and not get scared during the procedure, though I was already kinda scared so too late on that one. Then they had me lay down on the table. Once I was on the table, they covered the eye they weren’t going to work on yet and start putting more drops into the other eye. They put a ton of those things in just to be sure you are good and numb. I found it very comforting. Then they started the actual procedure. For those who may be easily disturbed, you can stop reading after this paragraph. I’m going to describe the whole process based on what I remember and the complementary DVD of my surgery, which they gave me during my follow up appointment this morning and I watched as soon as I got home. (It was kinda gross, but really awesome at the same time.)

The first thing they did after numbing the eye was use medical tape to tape down my eyelashes. This also helps hold the eye open while they insert a contraption to hold the eye open. While this doesn’t hurt, it does feel insanely uncomfortable, but the human brain is an amazing thing and within a minute or so my body adjusted to it and just started to feel slightly irritating, mainly because I couldn’t blink. I was then told to start at the blinking red light, which is pretty easy because the eye is naturally drawn to it. From there they put another thing on my eye, which I later found out is something to isolate the iris and pupil so they can cut a flap in the cornea. This part of the procedure involved putting a ton of pressure on my eyeball, which I did feel but was not painful. They do this until everything goes completely black, something I found oddly comforting. From there they attached another machine that would actually cut a flap in the cornea.

Once the flap was cut, the machine was removed. He then placed what looks like a round piece of thin gauze around the iris and slid back the corneal flap. From there came the fun part: the actual laser. This was actually the easiest part. I just stared at the blinking red light and heard a sound similar to an electrical ticking. While this was happening, the red light blurred and changed some. After about 30 seconds of this, the doc put the flap back down over my eye, smoothed it out and then blasted air on it to seal it shut. Then he removed the contraption holding my eye open, told me to blink and it was done. Rinse and repeat on the other eye.

Once both eyes were done, I sat up and was already able to see fairly well. There was some cloudiness, but it was still pretty good. The rest of the day was spent sleeping with safety glasses on so that I didn’t bump the eye and dislodge the flap and putting drops in my eye to help them heal. This morning, for the first time in 17 years, I woke up and could see everything. It was really amazing. I also had my one-day follow up this morning. At this point, my vision is 20/15. The doc said it should level out at 20/20. I have some other drops I have to use for the next week until my one-week follow up, but overall things are great.

I will say that my eyes are a little itchy, but that’s normal because they are healing. Of course, my brother chose earlier today to make fun of me for that. Making a big deal about rubbing his eyes and all that. So I just calmly went over to him and snatched his glasses off his face. I may not be able to rub my eyes, but at least I can see out of them. Hehehe. He stopped teasing me real quick.

Also, I now have a very useless pair of glasses that I don’t know what to do with. I wasn’t quite ready to part with them yesterday, but now that I can see I don’t need them. Which is pretty awesome.

Addendum: In case anyone in the Rochester area is looking to get LASIK surgery, I went to Dr. Scott MacRae at Strong Vision. Everything about my experience with them was amazing. They are using some of the best technology for this type of surgery, everyone who works there is wonderful and the office was comforting from the moment I walked in for my first appointment. Choosing them for my surgery was a great decision and I don’t have a single bad thing to say about them.