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:
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!
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 |
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!
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