Are You OK?

I'd like to point out that I'm writing this post without glasses or contacts and I see what I'm typing!  OK, my vision wasn't bad enough that I couldn't see the computer screen from 2 feet away but I can't say the letters were crystal clear.  They are now!  Before I get to far ahead of myself let me go back to Wednesday.

I slept great Tuesday night but woke up Wednesday morning and was immediately nervous.  I was really wishing I had been able to schedule an earlier appointment instead of having to wait until 12:50pm.  I made the mistake of reading some LASIK stories on the internet.  While most of them were positive I read a few stories of eyes not being completely numbed during the cutting of the corneal flap and stuff like that.  Needless to say that didn't help with my nerves.  I ended up running on the treadmill for 30 minutes just to take my mind off the surgery.  After a small lunch Angie drove me to the doctor's office.  I sat down for maybe 2 minutes before they were ready to take care of the payment details.  Fortunately I had enough money in my HSA so there was no need to finance.  Oh, in case you were wondering, I did go with the Lifetime Assurance Plan.  Maybe it's a sucker's bet but since I was paying with pre-tax money and they gave me the 15% off I decided to go for it.  After the financial portion was taken care of I went back to the waiting room and sat next to Angie for about 1 minute before Dr. Danzo asked if I was ready to go back.  He asked Angie if she wanted to go back with us, to discuss the procedure with the opthamologist Dr. Montgomery, but she declined.  I would probably have done the same thing if I were in her shoes because who wants to hear about eyeballs getting lasered?

I figured the process would be slow and that there would be a lot of waiting but wasn't the case.  I went into an exam room so Dr. Danzo could take one last look at my eyes and give me the rundown of how to use my three different types of eye drops.  He also put a numbing drop in each eye.  I quickly asked if that was the only drop I would get and he assured me I would get a lot more in the operating room.  Dr. Montgomery then came in and looked at my eyes, gave me a pill to help calm my nerves, and answered any last questions I had about the surgery. He said the two things people ask about the most were 1) is it going to be painful and, 2) what if my eyes move during surgery.  As far as #1 he said the worst part was when they cut the flap because there would be a lot of pressure on the eye.  He described it like a blood pressure cuff on your eye.  It's not painful but not really confortable either.  For #2 he said that the laser tracks the movement of your eye so it's OK if my eye moved slightly.  It would also shut down if my eye moved too much.  After that they had me sit in a quiet room for 10 - 15 minutes for the pill to take effect.  I can't say that I felt any different although I did feel a little sleepy.  Maybe that was the pill or maybe that was just me getting sleepy from sitting in a comfy chair in a dimly lit room.  I do know that I could feel my heartbeat pounding in my neck so I wasn't entirely calm.  Pretty soon one of Dr. Montgomery's assistants came and got me and escorted me to the OR.  I really got nervous at that point.

They had me lay down on the "operating table" and get my head seated in the correct place.  It was a bit like a massage table that the head rest that looked like a donut.  They gave me two squishy foam eyeballs (that made me get even more nervous as I assumed I was to squeeze them while I was in pain...who said anything about pain?) and then things went really fast.  Dr. Montgomery came in and asked me to state my name and birth date.  I like that they make sure they are operating on the right patient.  They were going to start on my right eye so they covered up my left eye, although they recommend that you keep the covered eye open and blink as usual.  Then they taped my upper eyelashes up and my lower eyelashes down.  A lot more drops were placed in my eye and then an instrument was placed over my eye to keep my eye open.  They were constantly placing drops on my eyes and I assume some were numbing and others were used to keep my eye clean.  Dr. Montgomery then told me to get ready for the pressure and they placed and instrument over my eye.  He told one of the assistants to start the vacuum.  Vacuum?  That sounds painful.  There was a lot of pressure, just like they told me, and the worst part was where the vacuum was pushing against my bottom eye socket bone.  I knew they were cutting the flap although I couldn't tell exactly how, and I felt like my eye was bouncing all over the place.  I'm sure my flap looked like this:

Not my actual eye or corneal flap

One of the assistants counted down from 15 seconds and I was thankful when the 15 seconds were up.  After they removed the vacuum I could see as the grabbed the flap and pulled it up.  As soon as the (corneal) flap was moved things got blurry.  They squirted a bunch of drops on my eye and then moved the laser into palce.  There was a green LED to stare at which was much fuzzier now that my cornea was gone.  The laser started and there was a strange smell (either the laser smell or the smell of my eyeball getting lasered) and I focused on the middle of the fuzzy green light.  After what felt like 5 - 10 seconds the laser stopped.  My first thought was that I moved my eye too much and the laser shut down.  Dr. Montgomery squired more drops on my eye and then I noticed the flap was put back in place.  That fuzzy green light was immediately clearer.  I'm not saying my vision was perfect but the cornea being in place had a huge impact.  More drops and what looked like a little squeegee being rubbed across my eye to smooth out the flap.  After that they removed the device that held my eye open and took off the tape.  It couldn't have taken more than 5 minutes max.  They then covered up my right eye and started on the left.  It seemed to go so fast on the right eye I told myself I needed to pay better attention on the left eye so I could blog about it!  The left eye went the same and before I knew it Dr. Montgomery told me that I did great and that everything looked great.  The assistants tole me I could sit up, they handed me my jacket and I was on my way.  Wham bam thank you Matt!  I walked up to the receptionist desk, and they told me they would see me the next day at my first post-op appointment.  It all happened so fast that Angie, who was sitting in a chair watching a show on her iPad, didn't get up right away.  She just stared at me like I was going to sit back down in the waiting area and wait for my surgery.  (The girl that was called in before me hadn't left yet so Angie assumed I wouldn't be done until after she saw the girl leave.)  Once she realized I was putting on my jacket and leaving she packed up her stuff, walked over to me with a concerned look in her eyes and said "are you OK?"  I said I was doing great and she just kept staring at my eyes.  I guess they were a little (LOT) red.  I put on my sweet doctor's office sunglasses and we headed outside.  Angie asked what was going on and I said I was done.  She couldn't believe it.  It was only 1:30pm.  They said to expect being at the office for 1 - 1.5 hours.  My vision was a little blurry but better than when I got there.  We got home and I headed up to bed.  Wearing my goggles I laid down and dozed of and on for about 3.5 hours.  Once I got up my eyes felt much better (not so scratchy and dry.)  I put some of my antibiotic and anti-inflammatory drops in and headed downstairs to see my girls.  L and N were excited to see my and I was excited to see them.  I never thought I would suffer any major side effects of LASIK but I was still glad my eyes worked.  I continued to use my prescription drops, as well as artificial tears, but by 9:30pm my eyes had had enough.  Off to bed to wrestle with my goggles.

Overall I would say that the surgery went very well, and very quickly.  I didn't experience any pain and the pressure wasn't that bad.  The worst part for me (and it wasn't as bad as I was expecting) was trying to keep my eye still the entire time because I couldn't help but over think it.  Want to know how my vision was the next day?  You'll have to wait for my next post!

Good To Go

I had my final pre-op appointment today and it looks like I'm all set for surgery tomorrow.  I'm still not too nervous yet but I'm sure I will be tomorrow.  Let me take that back, I'm not yet nervous for the surgery but I am nervous about the recovery.  To clarify, I'm nervous about accidentally rubbing my eyes and dislocating the flap on the cornea.  I love rubbing my eyes and often do it without thinking about it.  This past week I made a conscious effort to stop myself before rubbing my eyes so hopefully I can avoid doing it after my surgery.  The 20/20 Institute says that the cornea flap will heal in 48 hours but not to rub my eyes for 2 weeks.  They will be giving me goggles to wear the first few nights but I just might wear them 24/7 for the full 2 weeks!  I'm sure I won't get any funny looks at work, or at the store, or at church when I show up with goggles.  I'm thinking these look good:
                                          
Speaking of the 20/20 Institute, I was thinking back to my last post and realize that I made it sound like I chose them because it's close to my house and because they are the official LASIK provider of the Broncos.  While I do love the location, I also did plenty of research and know someone that had LASIK done there.  While some other places are cheaper (ICON LASIK lets you choose which LASIK technology you want; older technology = less $) and others offer free iPads and TVs, I felt like the 20/20 institute was the right choice for me.

My Road To (Hopefully) 20/20 Vision

As I mentioned in my last post, I'm going to do a series of blogs describing my experience with getting LASIK surgery.  I have only been wearing glasses for about 5 years and the main reason I got them was because I hadn't had an eye checkup in quite a few years and Angie finally talked me into going.  After a while I decided to go for contacts because I enjoyed seeing in "HD" compared to what my vision had become.  You don't really realize how bad your vision is until you get it corrected.  It took me quite some time to get used to my contacts and I constantly fiddled with them for the first few months.  In fact, I started getting chapped skin on my bottom eyelids because I just couldn't stop messing with them trying to get the contacts comfortable.  I know that a lot of (most?) people have contacts/glasses for 10+ years before they finally make the decision to get LASIK.  It makes me feel like I'm not a true contact/glasses wearing person since I haven't battled it out very long but I'm ready to get rid of my contacts and glasses.  Here are some reasons why:

- I am the type of person that can't stand to have a smudge on my glasses so I am constantly trying to get them spotless (those of you that wear glasses know this is an uphill battle...especially when you have kids)

- I am the type of person that needs things to feel "just right" so I still fiddle with my eyes a lot when wearing contacts until they don't bother me

- I want to be able to take a nap on the couch and not worry about my contacts drying out

- I want to be able to lay my head on the arm of the couch to watch TV and not have my glasses dig into the side of my head

- I want to play golf and softball without having to wear contacts (especially when it's windy)

- I want to be able to wear my new sunglasses all the time, not just when I'm wearing contacts

- I do a lot of looking into a microscope at work and I must not blink much because, when wearing contacts, my eyes always dry out.  When I wear glasses they are constantly bumping into my microscope eye pieces

- I want to be able to see my beautiful daughters as clearly as possible when we're roughhousing and not have to worry about my glasses getting kicked into my eyeballs

- I want to be able to see better when I'm running without having to wear my contacts (I never run with my glasses on because it's too annoying)

I could probably go on all day but I won't bore you.  It's about time I get to my actual LASIK experience.

I chose the 20/20 Institute for a couple reasons.  The first is that they have an office in Westminster which is conveniently close to my office and home (compared to most other LASIK providers that are in south Denver.)  The second, and most important?, reason is:

Yes that's right, they are the official LASIK partner of your Denver Broncos!  Anyway, I had been hearing their ads on the radio for the past couple years so I finally decided to set up a free consultation online.  In the online questionnaire I requested that they contact me via email because I felt like it would have been a lot harder to chicken out if I actually had to talk to someone on the phone.  They got back to me very quickly (same day) and let me know they had an opening that Wednesday (I contacted them on a Monday.)

When I arrived at the office I was immediately welcomed by a friendly receptionist who offered me coffee/tea/water/soda.  I passed on the drink and sat in one of there comfy chairs and watched their big screen TV while I waited.  Some people on Yelp have complained about the waiting room saying that they should spend their money elsewhere.  To be honest, I enjoyed it.  I didn't wait long, in fact I was hoping to wait a few more minutes so I could finish watching a show that was on TV, and started my eye exam.  It was a very thorough exam that ran the gamut of tests including an eye dryness test where they put little strips between your bottom eyelid and eye and measure moisture.  I passed!

While I waited for the Doctor to complete my exam I was again offered coffee/tea/water/soda.  The Optometrist and owner Dr. Danzo completed my exam and confirmed my prescription and candidacy for LASIK. He asked if I had any questions, I always go blank when I'm asked that question, so he started going through a list of FAQs he gets from patients.  My "patient counselor" Laura was also in the room for the second half of the exam.  Dr. Danzo asked if he could dilate my eyes, to which I responded yes, and while we were waiting on my eyes to dilate I went into Laura's office to talk.  She asked if I had any other questions (and was again offered coffee/tea/water/soda...I mention this because I thought it was nice they continued to ask me instead of just when I showed up and then never again) and then got into the nitty gritty.

I read a review that said this part of the consultation felt a little like a sales pitch, and I'm sure it is to a degree, but I was prepared for it and it didn't bother me.  It wan't like buying a car.  "What can we do to get you in new eyes today?" In fact, Laura didn't pressure me into making any decision and in fact I was the one that asked when they had an opening.  At their Westminster office they only do surgeries on the last Wednesday of the month and, prior to surgery, you can't wear contacts for 2 weeks.  Fortunately for me my consultation was exactly 2 weeks from the last Wednesday of the month so I was able to sign up for surgery on Wednesday, January 29.  I also read another review (it's good that I read so many reviews right?) that said the counselors weren't forthcoming with the price of LASIK.  That's absolutely not true.  Dr. Danzo actually mentioned the prices to me earlier in the exam, so it wasn't a shock when I saw it printed out on paper (at least as much as I could read since my eyes were getting a little blurry from the dilation drops.)

Basically the cost is $1890/eye and then an additional $550/eye  (I think) to get their Lifetime Assurance Guarantee (that will cover any additional LASIK surgeries you elect to have done over your lifetime.)  They are running a special where they give $500 off the LAG which then drops the price to $1890 + 300 per eye.  I checked with my insurance to see if they offered a discount at 20/20 Institute, they didn't, but 20/20 Institute still offered to give me the same discount off of the non-$500-off-special pricing if I went with the LAG (or 5% off the pricing if I choose not to go with the LAG.)  This brings all my pricing options to:

- No LAG - 5% insurance match: $3591
- Yes LAG - 15% insurance match: $4148
- Yes LAG, no insurance match, yes, - $500 special: $4380

Now I just need to decide whether or not I want to get the LAG.  On one hand, it would be very nice to know that, after the 1 year guarantee is over, I could go back and have my eyesight tweaked.  (Note: LASIK does not correct the need for reading glasses as we get older.)  Since I am still young , 35, this would obviously pay for itself if I do it just once more.  On the other hand, there is no guarantee that 20/20 Institute will be open in 10 - 20 years when I might need my vision improved again.  Plus, they only have three locations (2 in CO and 1 in IN) so if I ever move out of state it would mean multiple trips to CO to have the surgery (including before and after eye exams.)  I may have to flip a coin.

Once my eyes were dilated Dr. Danzo checked them out again and then my consultation was complete.  I need to go back in the day before the surgery so they can check my eyes again to see if my prescription changed in the past 2 weeks (contacts change the shape of your eyes so they need to make sure they are giving me the proper prescription.)  I'm not too nervous about the surgery yet but there are a few things about the recovery that I'm worried about.  This post has dragged on long enough so I'll save my concerns for the next one.

Have a wonderful weekend and let me know your thoughts on yes or no regarding the Lifetime Assurance Guarantee.

To See Or Not To See

I apologize for not updating this post in over a month.  I'm sure I've lost the 6 readers that I had!  It seems as though blogging is like running.  If you don't have an end goal it's hard to do it on a weekly basis.  Speaking of running, I've been running between 1 - 3 times per week and I run between 3 -4 miles on each run.  One of these days I need to try a 6 miler to see how it goes.  I haven't decided if/when I'm going to do another half marathon but I'm leaning toward the Rock n Roll Denver which is in October.  I think that race "only" had 8000 people last year which is a lot but way better than the 30k we had in Vegas.

Supporting the Denver Broncos on my run last Saturday

Going back a month, we went to Montana for Christmas and had a great time.  It was very cold the first few days (-50 F wind chill the first day there) but warmed up to the 20s by the end of the week.  L and N had a wonderful time playing with their cousins and enjoyed spending time with Grandma, Papa Donnie, Uncle Chad, Aunt Jeanne, Uncle Robert, and Auntie (to be) Bre.  L was constantly asked what she wanted for Christmas and every time her answer was "a pedal bike."  Thank goodness Santa left a pedal bike under the tree in Colorado.  Angie set up a video camera to capture her reaction upon seeing the bike and I'll try to post it at some point.  Actually, now that I mention it, I don't think I've seen the video yet.  N got a little basketball hoop and was equally excited to see it under the tree.

We had to say goodbye to my parents Sunday night as they are on their way back to Africa.  It was a lot of fun having them back in the country for the past 7 months and I really enjoyed seeing L and N get to know them again.

I don't make New Year's Resolutions but I did set some goals for the year.  The first is that I wanted to continue running and the other was that I wanted to get a Lasik consultation.  I ended up going in to the 20/20 Institute last week and found out that I was a candidate for Lasik so I scheduled it to be done on January 29th.  I have decided, for the next few weeks/months, to make this my blogging topic of choice and hopefully it will force me to update this more often.  I know a few people that have had Lasik, and I have read plenty about it, but I hadn't heard/read a detailed account of everything that goes into it.  I'll try to do that in this blog.  I'll do it in a separate posting so this one doesn't get too long.

In case you haven't noticed the Denver Broncos are going to the Super Bowl!  I really want to put about 25 exclamation points but I always think it's annoying when other people do it so I'll refrain.  Denver's defense has really stepped up in the postseason and both games, although not blowouts, were never seriously in doubt.  I have to say it's much more fun to watch football games like that.  The Broncos will have their hands full for the Super Bowl as they will play the Seattle Sherman Seahawks.  Of course the year the Broncos finally make it back to the big game it's going to be held outdoors in a cold weather stadium.  I really hope they can get decent weather so that the conditions don't favor one team over the other.  I can't wait!

Most. Awkward. Interview. Ever.