Clearly, updating the blog hasn’t been going so well.

I blame it on 4th quarter craziness at work and not wanting to do anything creative or too computer-involved when we get home.

But 4th quarter is almost over, and I’m on a vacation of sorts this week, so it’s time for an update!

First off, my old Dell couldn’t handle running CS5 (which I use a lot for work, but would also like to have for personal web design activities), so we invested in a new Windows computer for me. After a failed attempt at getting a Samsung laptop that was way too much like a Mac for my tastes, I went with the Sony Vaio. I’m a huge fan. It does everything I want it to super quickly. And the light-up keyboard is pretty fun too.

I’m sure there are other things that have happened since we updated last, but blah blah blah, they’re probably not that interesting.

So on to the interesting update, and the title of this post (also the reason for my pseudo-vacation)…

My eyes the day after surgery...almost back to normal.

Yesterday I had lasik surgery. To begin, let me state that I am not a typical person who wanted lasik. I never thought much about it at all, since I actually don’t mind wearing contacts.. I could put them in and take them out without a mirror, never had dry eyes, even wore them swimming, rarely lost them or ripped them, and never got eye infections.

Most other people I’ve talked to who have had lasik got it for one of those reasons, and they love that those inconveniences have gone away.

But for me, those things weren’t issues. So why did I get lasik?

Quite frankly, my biggest driving factor (other than that our insurance covered part of it) was that if the world ends as we know it, and I happen to survive through that, I would like to be able to see. I figure if I live through a post-apocalyptic type of scenario, contacts and glasses aren’t going to be easy to find. So I better get good vision while I can.

Weird? Yes. But it got me through it. That and singing Kirk Franklin songs really quietly while they were doing the surgery.

So compared to probably many people who have had lasik, I was a bit more apprehensive than most. Because I didn’t really have a strong, pressing reason in front of me to get the surgery.

In fact, sitting in the examination room with Dr. Rosin before the surgery, I started sweating, almost crying, and wanting to throw up. I came thisclose to telling him that it was all a mistake, and really, I probably didn’t need to do this, so let’s just cancel the whole thing.

But Matthew had taken the morning off work and driven me almost an hour away to Arlington Heights for the surgery, so I figured I better just go ahead and trust God with it.

If I hadn’t been told what would happen in the surgery, and more importantly, if I hadn’t read the legal waiver you have to sign before the surgery, I probably would have gone into it with no worries at all.

But knowing that they were going to tear a flap in my cornea and then laser into my eyeball was a little scary. Then reading all of the tragic scenarios that could happen during or after the surgery (most of them ending in complete blindness) that were contained in the waiver really pushed me to the edge. I was ready to cancel the surgery as soon as I read the waiver, but the doctor’s assistant assured me that Dr. Rosin had been doing lasik surgeries for 15 years and had never had a patient go blind. It was just legal procedure to include the waiver.

So I agreed to go ahead with it, but my biggest fear was that I would happen to be the one patient in 15 years to actually need the waiver for a reason.

The day before the surgery, I kept looking at things, imagining what it would be like not to be able to see anymore. Once the time came to actually go into the surgical room, I was a nervous wreck, but determined that whatever happened, I would trust God. After all, I would probably have better devotional times if I became blind and couldn’t work anymore.

So the surgery began. They gave me a valium first to relax me, but I don’t think it did much for me. I was super tense the entire surgery. The doctor had told me before it started that once they cut the flap in my eye, I would have a brief period of blindness where I wouldn’t see anything. (That was when I started sweating and wanted to walk out.) Fortunately, the blindness part wasn’t as scary as I thought.

They started everything so quickly that I didn’t even realize the blindness/flap-cutting part was happening until it was practically over. It was sort of like being hit in the face with something, where you don’t black out and lose consciousness, but you just can’t see for a few seconds. The whole time, the nurse and the doctor were talking me through it and counting backwards. It felt pretty scientific (or perhaps like a rocket launch) with the nurse announcing in a professional-sounding voice: “15 seconds, 10 seconds, 5 seconds, Interlase procedure now complete.”

So that was actually pretty comforting that they took it all quite seriously. I remember my dentist growing up would chat with the nurses and not even look down sometimes when he was working on my teeth. Not the best feeling when someone has a metal poking object jammed in your mouth. But anyway, Dr. Rosin was very professional and attentive throughout the surgery.

After the blindness/flap cutting part was over, I could see again, so that was a huge relief. My vision was really blurry, but at least I knew I wouldn’t be blind after it was all over. Then they removed the clamp or whatever that had kept my eye suctioned open, put some eye drops in, and put on another clamp to keep my eye open.

It was time for the laser part of the surgery that would correct my vision. I could see throughout the laser part, but just a blinking orange light. My vision was still blurry. Nothing hurt at all, but I could smell the laser burning my eye, which was a little creepy.

Then after a few seconds (and more professional counting-down from the nurse), it was over. Dr. Rosin took some kind of object (I could sort of see, but not very well) and smoothed down the flap of my cornea. I couldn’t feel it at all, I could only see each time he moved the object toward my eyeball. It was so amazing to me that the anesthetic worked that well.

Then I got to close my eye, and he did the whole thing over again in my other eye. I finally felt my body release some tension when we moved on to the second eye, because I knew what to expect and that I wasn’t going to be completely blind after it was all over.

All in all, the surgery took about ten minutes, maybe.

Afterward, I stood up and followed Dr. Rosin out of the room back into the exam room. He asked me how I was doing, and I said, “Pretty good. I’m not blind, at least.”

He laughed and said, “Of course not.”

Then he told me that once the anesthetic wore off, I would have a period of a few hours with itching and burning that could get pretty intense, and that I would hate him and wish I had never had the surgery. But that it would go away and that I should try to sleep it off.

They gave us a bunch of eye drops to take and sleeping goggles so that I wouldn’t touch my eyes during the night. The biggest thing to remember, they said, was to not rub my eyes at all for 7 days, because it could make the flap come out of place.

I was just happy that I wasn’t blind, so I didn’t much care about anything that was going to come next.

But boy did it get bad. He wasn’t kidding. It was intense pain for about 4 hours after the surgery, almost as soon as we got in the car (it was a really sunny day, and my eyes were very sensitive to light). They had given me dark sunglasses, but it wasn’t enough. The pain was so bad, I took my scarf and wrapped it around my eyes too, trying to keep all the light out. I was writhing around in the seat and moaning, it hurt so badly.

We got home and I stumbled into the bedroom, dropping my coat, scarf, and gloves along the way in the hallway. Matthew followed me and closed the curtains.

I was still moaning and complaining about how much light was coming into the room, so I asked him to put a blanket up over the window too. He got the blanket secured, and it was a little better, but there was still a lot of pain.

For anyone who has ever had a contact rip in their eye before, that was the pain that I had, only there was nothing that could be done about it. I couldn’t even touch my eye. I was crying and moving around, trying to find a position that didn’t hurt so much.

The most comfortable position during the first few hours after the surgery was sitting cross-legged and leaning forward with my chin in my hands. I have no idea why, maybe it relieved the pressure around my eyes or something to be facing forward like that, but when I sat that way and closed my eyes, they would feel better for a few minutes.

I wasn’t able to sleep at all, I was in so much pain, except for when I sat in the odd cross-legged position. But then my legs would get numb since I was leaning on them, and that would wake me up again.

I told Matthew that I wish they had given me a painkiller instead of valium, because it was pure misery.

He called the doctor to make sure this level of pain was normal, and they said it was normal and should subside in a few hours. They also said I could have some over-the-counter pain medicine.

So I took ibuprofen and tried to rest.

Throughout this time, Matthew was the best. He forced me to take my eye drops, even while I was crying and asking him not to do it because it hurt so much to open my eyes. He forced me to eat. (Well, not force feeding me, but just urging me to do it until I ate of my own volition

I finally was able to fall asleep, and he went back to the office.

Then PS started barking to be let out of her cage (I’ll assume she was worried about me, and not just being a brat) so I got up and let her out. I went back to the dark bedroom and closed the door again, feeling a bit like a vampire.

I fell back asleep for a couple more hours and woke up again when it was dark.

I was feeling a lot better, though my eyes were still a little sore. But I was able to walk around and even turn on some of our dimmer lights. (By this time, it was dark outside.) I had a little to eat and went back to bed since it still hurt to look at anything for too long.

I listened to some podcasts, and by about 9 or 10 pm, I was feeling a lot more energetic. I was even able to read a little bit. And my vision was getting better and better.

It was actually really hard to fall asleep that night, because I’ve been wearing contacts almost every day for about 11 years now, so to fall asleep while also being able to see made me feel like I had forgotten to take my contacts out. Pretty weird feeling.

My Tron Goggles

Today has been much better than yesterday in terms of the pain. I can obviously type, and I can read, watch tv, etc. without any pain. But the itching is pretty bad. In fact, it’s time for me to go get some more eye drops in because I’m starting to itch again. And the itching really sucks because, of course, it makes me want to scratch and rub my eyes, and I can’t.

I’ve discovered that wearing the sleep goggles during the day actually helps a lot, because it keeps the dry air from getting near my eyes as much, and then my eyes don’t itch as badly. But it’s kind of hard to go out because the goggles look a little odd. (Matt and I call them my “Tron” goggles.) I’m hoping the itching subsides by tomorrow so I can start doing my normal activities outside the house as well as inside the house. But it has been nice having a few days off work and getting stuff down around the house.

Well, that’s all for this update. Hopefully we’ll have more soon!