Laser Eye surgery Post Part 3

 So, there I lay.  Looking.  I really didn't have much choice about looking.  My eye was clamped from the top of the socket to the bottom, open.  I can't tell you what the clamp looked like because I never saw it coming.  What I can tell you is what it felt like.  It felt .....wrong.  I was aware of my eye socket, the bone of it, in fact, I became aware of my skull as a skull, rather than as my head.  It is not often we feel the whole of our eye socket.  It was uncomfortable.  My eye had been numbed with drops.  The surgeon spoke, but not to me.  He spoke to his glamorous assistants....surgeon speak....'scapel'.... 'drill bit No. 4'....that kind of thing.  Then he told me to keep my eye still and open.  Right-o, like I could do anything else.  My eye did want to shut....oh, it so desperately did.  It knew what was coming for it. My non-communicative surgeon suddenly became hugely chatty.  Couldn't shut him up as he told me in great detail how he was about to cut a flap in my eyeball (yes, he called it a flap) and that after that I wouldn't be able to see.  I actually didn't want to know, but there was no getting away from it.

Bulging Eye - Disconcerting

 Before the cutting began, he told me he would be placing a suction thingy onto my eye....to suck it out a bit, I guessed. He did this.  It felt oh so wrong.  I imagined that I didn't look too damn good either....the pressure on my eyeball was only just tolerable and then....the cutting began.  I could see the flap being created, lying there focusing on the light as instructed, trying to be the very best patient he had ever, ever had and then maybe, he might want to do the best job he had ever, ever done?  I don't know!  I was helpless there, just trying to help myself in any small way.  Then there was a star burst.  No, not a packet of sweeties considerately produced to soothe people with one eye semi-sucked out of their face.  No, this was a mosaic of splintered light.  In fact, it was the light I had been looking at all along, but this time with the stuff that covers the pupil, cut away.  Disconcerting?  Yep.  Revolting?  A bit.  My surgeon then told me he was going to laser my eye.  Then, he lasered my eye.  I have to say, at this point, I really wanted it to stop.  I am usually fairly stoic but I hadn't been prepared for the feeling of 'wrongness' the procedure had induced in me thus far, plus the socket clamp thing was starting to hurt and I was in effect, blind in that eye.  Still, it didn't seem the time to be getting off the table.  And, truth be told, despite the yuk-ness of it all, I was still wanting perfect eye-sight.  My reasons for being there were still greater than my reasons for not being there.

The surgeon must know that the laser is not without it's discomforts....the heat builds up in the eye, despite the numbing, it builds up in direct relation to the smell of burning flesh.....the surgeon counted down the remaining seconds '10.......5,4,3,2,1 and we're done.'.  I believed that another three seconds and he would have been through my brain and it would be the smell of burning foam as he lasered his way into the operating couch that we would be inhaling.  Well, perhaps not me inhaling at that stage.  Just the surgical team.  But it was over. Except it wasn't.  The surgeon then had to replace the flap.  Ah yes!  How could I forget the flap! Cute liddle ol' flap....flappy flappy flappy...flappity flap-flap....  I was able to watch as he positioned it and patted it down, a version of my vision returning as it arrived over my pupil.  I was unable not to watch.

My world was blurred.  And then, quick as a flash, I was swivelled on the couch thing and positioned for the procedure on my left eye.  Repeat as above.  Only this time, I knew what was coming.  In some respects that was a good thing, in others, not so good.  I found myself wondering if this one was taking longer, had it been like that for the first eye,  now I knew what 'normal' was, I found myself bracing against the suction thingy....but at the same time, I knew that it would soon be ended, there were no nasty surprises.  It was just nasty.  I was pleased when it was over.  I was pleased I didn't have a third eye.

Ol' Red (Yellow & Puffy) Eye.....

I was taken off the couch and into a side-room, the recovery room.  I truly expected to open my eyes and voila!  I can see!!  But no, all was a blur.  I had my sunglasses on, sitting in a dimmed room, and still the world felt too bright.  My husband was with me, he peered into my eyes and said something like 'Can you see me?' .  He spoke very slowly.  Clearly, he thought my brain had had a bit of lasering too.  T|he fact is, I couldn't see him, or anything very well.  I remained in the recovery room without recovering, for another half hour or so, then it was time to leave.  I was given eye shields (what?!), eye drops and instructions to come back the next day for a check up.  My husband led me, stumbling and whining, to the car.  It was brilliant sunshine on the drive home, I cried all the way.  Eyes streaming, rolling up into the back of my head in an effort to get away from the light....like some vampire, caught out by the sudden approach of dawn.  I looked like a vampire too.  All bloody eyed and pale.  I reflected on my treatment on the way home (there really wasn't much else to do, with my eyes wide shut).....it hadn't been too painful as such, it had been......a bit revolting.  But I was feeling positive and upbeat overall.  Because, I had done it!  I had, after years of wondering about it, day-dreaming about perfect vision, done it and I wouldn't be doing it again.  Now all I had to do was wait for the results.............