Day 1: Operation Day

Published August 3rd, 2007

(written in the future)

Today was operation day. The morning consisted of going into the docs office and doing a lot of waiting around. They ran some of the same tests they had run at consultation, then dilated my eyes and checked the retinas. Everything was OK, so I was sent home for lunch.

Upon my return, it was time to get ready. I was feeling pretty nervous by this point, and gladly accepted a Xanax. They started with some eyedrops, put a paper hat on my head and paper on my feet and let the drops go to work. Then, it was into the laser room.

The operating table is just a long table with very big machine hovering over. The headrest is in a U-shape so that you can’t roll around. So I slid under, looking up at a triangle of white lights around a flashing red light. They taped up my left eye, then taped my right eye open and placed a metal retractor on it so that I couldn’t close it if I tried. This is where I started feeling pretty nervous and weird. The doc started squirting anesthetic in my eye, and using a foam swap to spread it around. I couldn’t really feel anything, nothing at all by the time the anesthetic worked. He then said “Tracker on” - meaning the computers started tracking my pupil so that the laser couldn’t miss. And then the laser started - holy crap I was scared. But it wasn’t too bad, I did my best to stare at the light and not twitch my eye too much. The doc said to breathe through my mouth so that I wouldn’t smell it too much. It smelled like the dust from a dentist drill. I’ve smelled worse. Thirty seconds later it was over…they washed out my eye, put a contact lens on and taped it shut to work on the left eye. The procedure was the same.

The doc said all was well, and sent me home. My vision wasn’t perfect, but it was better than it was when I walked in! I went home, started the 5-bottle eyedrop routine, and went to sleep as soon as possible. I was pretty tired.

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