I can see clearly now, Part Four.

After my surgery, I spent the day sleeping, taking Vicodin, and listening to The Goon Show. Is there anything that Spike Milligan, Peter Sellers, and Harry Secombe cannot make better? :)

When I was awake, I used my Prednisone drops once an hour. The drops kept my vision a little fuzzy, but kept my eyes feeling relaxed and soothed.

I tried to be back to normal by the next day, but, as usual, I expected myself to heal too fast. So the Charming Man drove me to Dr. Teplik's office for my day after check up. Everything was closing up just fine!

It took about four days for me to completely adapt to my new vision. I have far fewer headaches than I used to when I had my contacts. In addition, my vision is improved beyond what contacts or glasses used to provide. I'll be using the sterile tears for another two months, but they feel so good, it's not a problem.

By the time of my one week check up, I was completely up to speed, vision-wise. I still have some habits that are hard to break - I still say that I need to take my contacts out, and I still reach for my glasses when I go to bed at night.

Being able to see when I get up is utterly weird. But it is also utterly fantastic!

LASIK was absolutely one of the smartest things I've done. :)

I can see clearly now, Part Three.

I was as ready as I could be. I had filled the prescriptions I needed - antibiotic drops, Prednisone drops, sterile artificial tears, and a small amount of Vicodan.

Also, The Charming Man had arranged to work remotely. If you are going to get LASIK, you cannot drive yourself after the surgery. You might want someone to drive you for the next couple days after, too.

The day arrived! I was both thrilled and terrified by the unknown.The appointment itself was for two hours. The major part of it was taken with careful measuring and more eye tests - double and even triple checking the changes in my eyes.

My regular optometrist and I had decided on the monovision option - where one eye is corrected for distance  vision, and the other is corrected for close work. (Note for the ages: I love my monovision. I no longer need reading glasses!) If you chose this, be sure to tell your eye doctor to tell the surgeon what distance you want the correction to be at. I learned that several doctors forget to add this important information to the files.

After the tests, they gave me two tablets of Valium and took TCM and I to a relaxation room to let the sedative kick in.

I immediately fell asleep. :) When the nurse came in twenty minutes later, I could barely be bothered to get off the sofa.

Which means the actual surgery is a bit fuzzy in my memory. I have to say it was cool as hell, though.

Dr. Teplick was a complete rock star. The entire surgery took less than five minutes and he talked me through the entire thing. I felt completely comfortable and safe.

They taped my eyelashes down so I couldn't blink and applied a little suction to my eyeballs to make sure they were nice and prominent. This actually felt pretty cool. I thought I would hate it, but it was not a problem at all. The laser machine then flipped into place above me. My right eye got corrected first.

I saw some blinking red lights above me, then a steady red light. This was the laser cutting and reshaping the cornea. They repeated the pretty light show on my left eye, then. The Charming Man even got to watch the whole thing in a special viewing room. Awesome-sauce, indeed!

My eyesight was a little blurry from all the drops, but I could tell my vision was different. Then Dr. Teplik gave me some really cook Kareem Abdul Jabbar goggles to protect my eyes.

I had to wear them for the first twenty-four hours, then sleep in them for a week afterwards.  And they work great if I have to work with dusty things, too!

The Charming Man then gently led me to the car and took me home.

My next post will be about the after care and how I've been adapting since.