Normal service will now resume!!

[tacit]

I woke up this morning to find that I can SEE!

So awesome.

I celebrated by driving to my follow up at the eye clinic. I was blinking lots and concentrating hard, so it was totally safe.

It was. Shut up.

According to my latest eye test, my right eye is, allegedly 20/20. I say allegedly because although I can focus, it's still hazy and murky. I can't actually see perfectly but the optician thinks I can. Do you think that'd fly with the DVLA? My other eye is lagging behind; I could only read about half the letters on the screen. But I'm hoping it'll catch up? I'm not sure how this works. And, even if it doesn't, I can live with this. 20/20 in one eye is legal to drive and that was my goal going into this.

On the one hand, in the past week I have:

• Allowed someone to soften my corneas with alcohol, smoosh the tissue to one side, shoot lasers into my eyes, and smoosh is back.
• freaked out (before, during, after)
• been practically blind for 2 days and lamely fuzzy for 2 more
• God, the pain*
• Whimpered down the phone at my ex-housemate JJ to get him and C to come over and direct me to the good drugs (see above re: pain and blindness)
• Mislaid the dog in the kitchen
• Stood in puppy wee
• Stood in cat food
• Cried
  
• Wanted to call my mother and get her to come and do my washing up and feed me. I have never wanted to summon my mother in my entire life - she's the least nurturing woman in Britain, but she would have mopped my kitchen floor
• Been unable to read the aftercare instructions the opticians gave me (why so small?!)
• Been unable to identify which eye drops were which
• Been deeply confused by an episode of SGA. Eyesight helps during action scenes. Surprising, huh?
• Did I mention the pain?
• Been so bored I slept for fun
• Had a puppy who was so bored he chewed for fun

On the other hand, I can now

• see.

So, on balance, the pros have it.


* Don't let that put you off if you're considering it. I had the most brutal surgery there is because it was the cheapest. Everyone else I've spoken to in the clinic who's had it done in the past week (easily identified by sunglasses) said they had very little pain. I don't think that's hyperbole - at my 24 hour checkup my eyes were still streaming and I couldn't see very well at all. One guy I spoke to had driven himself there and happily read small print in the far wall, on a poster that was a big blur to me. My treatment was harsh! But cheaper.

p.s. Love and hugs to everyone who wished me luck and sympathy, and texted me, and called me up to relieve my boredom and apprise me of Internet Happenings. I love you all! *smishes flist*

Comments

[dodificus.livejournal.com]

I've been thinking about it for about 15 years...I'm a slow thinker ok.

Is it weird that the biggest pro in my mind of getting it done is that if I ever get kidnapped in the middle of the night/am in a plane that crashes on a desert island, I'll be able to see properly? In my actualy nonkidnapped life I don't actually mind my contacts that much. I've been blindish for longer than I *haven't*. It's weird to think that I could just go get it fixed.

Ummm...were needles in eyes involved?

[tacittype.livejournal.com]

I thought about it for at least 5 years before actually taking the plunge because it's such an unknown, you know? And not strictly necessary, just a luxury. But it is cool I still don't quite believe it, actually. I feel like I could fix the gritty feeling in my eyes if I just took out my non-existent contacts. Very odd.

I can say with absolute honesty that at no point in the procedure did I feel any pain or even discomfort, really. They anaesthetised my eyes (with drops, not needles), so the only grossness was that I knew what they were doing. I'm pretty sure it was entirely needle-free. And, today when I went to get the protective contacts out, I made him give me a topical anaesthetic, so that was completely sensation-free as well.

And to be fair, the pain I experienced in the aftermath - the first 36 hours or so - was not much worse than peeling a particularly stingy onion. Just... kinda prolonged. I was a bit of a baby about it, but objectively it wasn't awful. AND, if you did happen to go for it, you could take a different surgical option - mine was LASEK (http://www.ultralase.com/vites/treatment-choices), which is cheaper and nastier than the others.

I'm all for it. I'll be recommending it to everyone once I'm all healed up and can perform feats of vision at will. \o/

[beadattitude.livejournal.com]

Oh congratulations, hon.

[tacittype.livejournal.com]

Thankyou!! It is SO COOL! &hearts

[deltacephei.livejournal.com]

That's just \o/! So awesome!
You can see! No more 8-)

Two things cracked me up. (Yes, cracked me up, in your post about pain and mother-summoning. I am a bad person.)

1. You misplaced your dog?!

2. Small instructions on medication for people who can't see well. How stupid is that?

But you're back! Despite all problems - which are disturbingly numerous. Thank god, the positive "can see" outweighs them all!

PS: Don't worry about that SGA episode. I found those scenes quite confusing even with normal eyesight :-)

[tacittype.livejournal.com]

Two things cracked me up. (Yes, cracked me up, in your post about pain and mother-summoning. I am a bad person.)

*g* It's ok, dark humour is the good humour. I am on board with this.

Yep, Dex. There were shadows, he's dark, it was all sort of blurring together. Lameness. And today I've misplaced him twice, but that's because he crawls under the hedge to get into next door's garden. I've told him he's going on the barbecue, but he appears not to care.

And now that my eyesight is better I have discovered that, not only was the aftercare sheet in a tiny font (ok, a normal font) but the printer sucked and it's got faded columns all down it. PLUS, the sticky prescription labels on the eyedrops are actually illegible, so that's not just the blindness. And the labels on the eyedrops cover the important pre-printed information that might have actually shed some light on the issue. SO DUMB!

I actually have a whole list of complaints to bring to their attention, should they appear to care. Some aspects of the whole thing were a bit shit. I mean, they provided 8 tabs of paracetamol. Is that it?! There was also a vial on anaesthetic drops that were supposed to be one dose, which I stretched to two - they were fantastic, but only lasted about 30 minutes, so they were more of a tease than anything else... Pain makes me nauseous, and they did at least allow me to eat some toast so that C's super strength prescription pain pills didn't make me throw up... (I hope she doesn't get back ache again any time soon because I've used all her drugs. And all her dad's. Next step was going to be asking my neighbours if they had any weed. ...Ok, not really. Weed makes me puke as well.)

Ahem. But I can see! *Resumes enthusiasm*

But you're back!

I am!! I'm down to just a couple of hits of CTRL +, now. And I can see my cursor, and I can read the tabs' text (squinting), and I can identify my quick launch buttons... Hurrah! I'm rationing my computer time because I get blurrier and blurrier the longer I play, but it is so good to have the option. &hearts

[nel-ani.livejournal.com]

Go you, you seeing person!