For those of you who didn’t know, I had LASIK eye surgery two days ago, Thursday December 17th, 2009.

There’s been a lot of questions since then, so I’ll do my best to answer them.  Also, in the future if people stumble onto this page, maybe it’ll answer some of your questions:

• No, it’s not painful to be zapped in the eye with a laser.  It is a bit painful when they put the clamp on your eye, and apply pressure while cutting open your cornea.  It feels more or less like someone’s punched you in the eyeball.  It goes away after an hour or so.
• No, you can’t immediately see after the surgery’s over.  When you sit up from the chair, it looks like you’re under water.  That goes away (mostly) after your mandatory 5 hour nap after surgery.
• Yes, my vision is perfect now.  At least that’s what they’ve told me. According to my morning after test, my vision is now 20/20.  It’s still a bit foggy around bright white things, and Tv/computer, but it’s getting better each day.
• Yes, I could technically have gone back to work the day after surgery. But why risk it. I took a long weekend, and should be more than fine on Monday to go back full time.
• There are a metric ton of eye drops you have to put in pre and post surgery.  Every hour I have to put in artificial tears, every two hours some anti-inflammatory medication, and 4 times a day some antibiotics.  If you don’t like eye drops, you might not want to get this surgery.  I didn’t know about all the drops until the morning of. (Yes, after I’d already paid.)
• It’s still an expensive procedure.  After a discount I got, it cost me just shy of $3500.  However, there are cheaper procedures you can get done. I got the “CustomVue” surgery from The Lasik Institute in Burlington, MA.  Dr. Sheth did the surgery and was fantastic.  The cheaper surgery that the Lasik Institute folks have available is as cheap as $650 per eye. (As of the time I’m writing this.)  The “CustomVue” I got also comes with a lifetime guarantee. If my sight goes bunk at any point, I can have the surgery done again for free.
• Yes, you go blind temporarily when they’re doing the surgery.  My eye sight went completely black for about 10 seconds.
• Yes, you can actually see when they flip the sliced part of your cornea away from your eye.  It goes from clear to blurry pretty quickly.
• Yes, the laser makes a scary sound. (Similar to the first time you hear a tattoo gun. It’s that scary.)
• Yes, the eye drops they make you put in give you a metallic taste in your mouth.  You get used to it.
• Yes, I’m glad I did it.  Once my vision crisps up, I’ll be 100% glad I’ve done it.
• The laser itself is very quick.  My left eye (which was worse than my right) took two blasts. 8 seconds, and 6 seconds.  The right eye (which was the stronger of the two) took one blast, 8 seconds.  All in all, I was in the chair about 8 minutes or so.  (A few minutes for prep, then the slicing, then the laser, then done.)
• My eyes are incredibly bloodshot right now.  The pressure they apply with the clamp, to make it so you can’t move your eye, can cause bruising. It’s normal.  It doesn’t hurt anymore, though.
• If you’re thinking of having LASIK done, and have the financial means to do so.  Just do it.  While the surgery is something I don’t want to do again in my life, it was definitely worth doing it once.

I’m still recovering, but getting to the point where I can function.  I can look at the computer screen for more than ten minutes now, without having eye pain.  I drove on the highway today for the first time since the surgery, and it was a trip.  Being able to read things far away is pretty awesome.

I’ve been playing “Can you read that?” with Christine since my eyes started healing.  I’m determined to find something that’s far enough away that she can’t read it, and I can.  So far, I’ve failed.  She has some damn good eye sight.

Other than that, life’s just chuggin’ away.  Keeping busy.  Did all my holiday shopping today, wrapped all the presents and placed them under our mock-tree. (We didn’t buy one, we just designated a spot on our floor that we were going to stack the presents.)

That’s all I’ve got for now.  Uninteresting, I know.  C’est la vie!