Powerful peepers, part 2

Before I continue, I should note that I have now lost one of my superpowers: Magno-vision. Right before the surgery, I thought to ask if I would keep my fabulous near vision which was great until about a foot away. I was told that that would change, because the defects in my vision actually caused my eyes to magnify everything that was close up.

I had noticed that everything was smaller with glasses, and figured that was due to them being lenses perched a distance away from my peepers. Nope, what they showed was normal. What my eyes saw was abnormal, albeit awesome.

Well, my Magno-vision is gone, and I do miss it. Things are so small!!! Where's the detail? I still have a hell of a time focusing on anything too close. Being able to see far makes up for it, though!

The next morning I opened my eyes, and decided not to put in the steroid drops until after my appointment (they are thick and white, and haze my vision).

I had a little trouble focusing, but things were clear. I didn't think that they were very clear and knew that it was going to fluctuate quite a bit in the upcoming week.

Well, they tested my vision.

20/20 in my right, 20/25 in my left. The right was crisp, but not the left. I was surprised at the numbers. I also had edema in my corneas, thus the need for the steroid drops. Great, even my eyes are fat.

I was told that I was seeing better than normal for the morning after surgery, and they had to remind me that my eyes were just cut up the day before and don't expect miracles less than 24 hours later.

Other people who had had this told me that recovery was no big deal. They were back into the swing of things quickly. Not for me. I was very tired, and had a ton of drops to take (antibiotics 4x a day, steroids and lubricants every 2 hours that day). On Sunday, my vision started to clear up a little in the evening, and as it did I felt a surge of energy. Interesting.

On Monday morning, I woke up, blinked, and my left eye went blurry. I was told that I would be able to see flap problems because things would go blurry, but nothing happened to my eye. Nothing moved the flap. Eventually I was seeing triple, but it was clearing up, so I went back to sleep and woke up to it being perfectly fine. It was scary, though.

I went back for another check-up yesterday, and I tested close to 20/15 in my right eye and a non-crisp 20/20 in my left. Again, I was surprised by these numbers. I'm not too thrilled with my left eye, but that might be because my right is an overachiever. I was told that they would go back and forth with one being clearer than the other, but it never happened. My left never got its act together. My eye doctor told me that he is the exact same way since his Lasik, but it doesn't bother him. If need be, I can get an enhancement, but it's still less than a week so my left could still clear up.

I have the halos that everyone talks about, and continue to be light sensitive. I am also on vacation this week, which is grand because it would have been no fun to try to deal with this along with my fast-paced job.

My eyes still feel odd, like I either have eyelashes in them or else I slept in contacts. My vision will also fluctuate depending on what I do with my eyes - like I remember it doing with contacts back in the day when I wore them. But, all in all, I am happy that I can see.

I realize now that I defined myself a lot by my vision. I often told people how blind I was, and would entertain thoughts of what would happen if I lived in a time period before corrective lenses. What will I do with all of that time now? I'll have to find something new to feel sorry for myself about, or else I'll have to actually do something productive. :)

Would I do it again? Yes. The biggest change is that I would have the pain pills ready before the procedure was done. I would have sent Rick out for them while I was still in the back being worked on, or had them give the prescription to me on a previous visit. If I had been able to catch that in time, then I would have had a much more pleasant experience.

So yes, Lisa, I'm glad I got rid of my contacts and glasses. ;)