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/