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February 21, 2006
Lasered!
A few months ago I made the decision to go under the blade, or actually the "laser". Yes, on Friday 10th Feb 2006 I had a refractive eye surgery to correct both my myopia and astigmatism. I have been thinking about it for a while, but for some reason dropped under my radar when I heard about all the possible complications (the site itself doesn't have much but at the bottoms there are good links to other better sites about refractive eyes support groups) from the surgery.
I was actually in the middle of writing one long post about why I'm doing it, but I'm no where near completing it. For some bizarre reasons I got emotionally affected just by writing why I want to get rid of my glasses.
So instead, I'm going to blog the experience itself. For various reasons I will not disclose the place where I did it. If you want to know, email me privately.
There are many types of refractive eye surgery types that you could do. The most common and preferred method these days is LASIK. I have a few friends who have done it and they all had good results. The best thing about LASIK is that most people will pretty much reach their best visual acuity within a few days or within the first week.
However, I didn't do LASIK. The reasons will be too long too explain and out of context of this post. The procedure that I did is ASL (Advanced Surface Laser) as my doctor called it, but really it's PRK. So it does take a while to recover, even up to three months to recover.
Anyway, to keep things going. I arrived at the surgery at about 9:45AM. They like to make people arrive at least 90 minutes before the scheduled surgery to do the forms, payment, consent forms etc etc. They didn't need to do anything at the day of the surgery because they already have all my data on the assessment day. This is where you had your 2-3 hours long assessment to determine if you are a candidate for a refractive eye surgery.
Both of my brothers were in tow as they will be my "carer" for the weekend. With PRK you will feel the pain for the next 48 hours at least, so they'd like to keep you in Valium and some extra strong pain killers to speed up your recovery. This is also the reason why you need a "carer" in the first few days after the surgery because there are drops that needs to be administered every few hours. You can't do that yourself while you're in Valium can you!
While I was doing the consent form and payment, they gave me a Xanax tablet relax me. I almost scoffed at them saying, "Nah don't worry about it I can take it no worries". But I thought for the better and decided just take the tablet. So they put me in the surgery gear, white coat, head cover etc and sent my brothers to get the prescription filled.
When they arrived I looked back at the "blue bag" (they put all the the prescription in a nice zippable blue bag) and a bit shocked. They gave a bunch of Valium, 20 Panadeine Forte, 2 Xanax and a bunch of other eye drops for maintenance. I thought bloody hell, I would probably just take a few of them and keep the rest for "emergencies". Certainly I wouldn't need 20 Panadeine Forte. Oh I couldn't be more wrong.
Both of my brothers went into a tutorial room with a bunch of other "carers" for instructions. We, the patients, had to wait outside. Seems like they don't like us to know what our "carer" were told ha :)
So time past, I almost fell asleep waiting for my turn (it's the Xanax) when they called me. Finally, I thought. They lead me to the surgery room and both my brothers were asked if they wanted to see the procedure? They can because in the surgery room there's a massive glass window for the audience. So off they went. On the surgery room they told me that there's a change of plan, they won't see me on Monday because of the size of the ablation, it will have to be Tuesday to give my eyes enough time to recover. Apparently the ablation surface for my eyes would be be bigger than most people. Normally they would do the operation on Friday and patients will need come back on Monday to for the post-op check up.
Up to this time I was still feeling upbeat and very exited about it. The good doctor smiled and asked me how I was doing. Fine I said. So I lied in the operating table and this is where reality started to descend on me. I was about to do it! Someone is going to laser my eye and reshape my cornea. I was starting to be really nervous. You know what, I was thinking of not taking the Xanax, but I now I wished I had taken 2!
I told them that, the doctor and his assistants, they just laugh and said relax, it won't take long. It was pretty quick, like they promised.
First they put something in my eye to keep my eye lid open during the surgery and patch the other eye. Then it began! I wanted to know what they were doing with my eyes, but I couldn't believe how nervous I was during the the operation that I could barely speak :)
I had to guess what happened next, but they put some drops first, which gotta be the local anaesthetic. Then some some actions that removed my ephitelium. So that's all done here come the laser. They actually said that. "Now we are going to laser your eye, it'll be 40 seconds". They put the laser over my eye. "Keep looking at the light and try not to move your eye!". Yeah, yeah they told me that their laser is one of the fastest in the world to track your eye movement but I still don't dare to challenge that statement. So with full and utter concentration that I didn't think I could muster again I looked straight at the blinking red dots in front of my eyes and tried hard to move. "Wait a second, there are 3 lights, which one do I look at?", I said at a lame attempt of making a joke. Surprisingly that made them laugh, them middle one they said :)
"We're starting now!", a voice in the background said. Nothing happened and I couldn't feel anything. "40 seconds!" ... "30 seconds!", the voice at the background kept me informed how much longer it will be. As the seconds tick, the light was becoming blurrier and I smelt something burning, I was about to ask why but I remembered that I should kept my head and eyes straight ahead, so I kept quiet and concentrate at the blinking light. "20 seconds!", "10 seconds!", "Done!" .... phew.
That was the longest 40 seconds in my life.
Then the shock came, as soon as the laser went they did a few things in the eye. "Alright we're going to poured cold water now.", that's actually more shocking than the laser! The water that they poured was freakishly cold and I almost jumped from the operating bed. Once that all done, the soft contact lens bandage was put in (this was to be taken out on Tuesday when I come back for post-op check up).
Now the left eye. Damn ... I almost forgotten about it. If you thought I wouldn't be as nervous by now since I had one done and know what's coming, you're totally wrong. I was still nervous as hell and now really wishing that I had taken 3 Xanax :)
What happened next is pretty much a carbon copy of what happened with my right eye. However, instead of 40 seconds it took 44 seconds for my left eye. I can only guess this was because of higher degree of correction that they had to do on my left eye.
The entire operation was very quick, less than 15 minutes all up. I was still in disbelieve when it was done. My doctor lead me out from the operating room, on the hall way he said, "So can you see that sign over there?".
And I could! I don't know how to describe my feeling at that time. Although still very blurry and with the soft contact lens protecting my eyes, my sight have already improved so much that I could now probably walk around without my glasses.
They led me into a darkened room and both of my brothers with instructions what we had to do in the next few days. That's all done, up the sun glasses that they told me to bring because I would be light sensitive after the operation, they just removed a chunk of my cornea, without the sunnies I wouldn't have been able to open my eyes. They gave me 3 Valium straight away after the operation (or was it before? I couldn't remember anymore) and that took the full effect on the way home. As soon as I got home the only thing that I could think of was going to bed. As I wobbled to my room and changed my clothes, my left soft lens bandaged fell off! Fark! As the instruction said, if the soft lens bandage fell off don't attempt to put it on yourself and go back to the centre immediately. Even call the doctor's mobile if it's Sunday.
So my brother quickly drove me back to the surgery. Obviously they didn't think it was that dangerous because I had to wait another 15 minutes before the doctor came and see me. He checked my eyes and put the soft lens back on. I asked does this happened often? No not really he said :) Some people's soft lens bandage fell off on Sunday he said, but not straight away after people got home. Well it's good to be unique they said.
So now back again to home, and by this time, those 3 Valium and a Xanax reaaaally was working. I wobbled back to my bed ... and slept for the next 3 days.
Funny that I couldn't remember much what happened in the next three days - Friday, Saturday and Sunday, even some of Monday. It went so quick because of all those Valium and Panadeine Forte. Initially I predicted I would only take like 4/6 Forte but tell you what, by the end of Monday I had finished all 20 tablets of Panadeine Forte.
Holly crap! I couldn't believe it myself. Like I said, I couldn't remembered much, but every time I woke up on those Friday/Sat/Sun my eyes were so gritty and irritating that the only thing that I could think of is take those Valium and the Panadeine Forte and go to sleep again. My brothers gave me the drops when I needed it. I think they have done some when I was asleep.
By Monday afternoon I was pretty much sober, my eyes weren't as gritty as the past few days and I was feeling OK. My vision was blurry as hell but I could watch TV and did other stuff. This was the same with 4 other people whom I know who have done it at the same place. They all said the weekend went so fast that they didn't realised it was over. That's why they said don't worry about the weekend, you won't notice it. And I didn't.
So Tuesday came and my brother drove me back to the surgery. This time the assistant came to see me. She took the soft lens bandage off and check my eyes. Everything was OK she said. But unfortunately the wound on the left eyes still hasn't healed fully but it should closed by the end of the day. She gave me instructions extra instructions how to for my left eye and sent me home. She said if it still feel gritty in the next day I should call in.
So that was pretty much it. Of course the next day came and my eyes were still gritty. But that's for another post :) This is already one hell long of a post which I should have done last week.
Update: Correcting the date, it's not 17th Feb it's 10th Feb.
Posted by vhadiant at February 21, 2006 07:20 PM
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