Life on the West Side

So peeps, I have new eyeballs. I can seeeeee!

This is how it all went down…

Monday afternoon they took me back while the Hus waited patiently playing angry birds. I got another complete eye exam, just for one last check. Then a Doc (not THE doc doing the surgery) came in for 0.6seconds said I’m coo’ and left. There was a lot of down time that I kept myself busy with reading smutty magazines. After finishing about 10 articles (approx 15 minutes later? It’s just an approximation… depends on how into the pictures and articles I am…), my new best friend brought me some Xanax. Ah my sweet friend Xanax… and led me to a dark, cozy comfy room and told me to chill for half hour.

I almost fell asleep when I barely heard my name being called and then the freakout set in. This last room is THE room. Where I could either wake up with new eyeballs, no eyeballs, or not wake up at all. I was going to back out at that moment but then thought, who needs eyeballs anyway? Plus if I don’t wake up, my life insurance policy would make Merrick debt free. Let’s get this thing started!

The right eye went first and it was teeny bit painful when they did some eye suctioning (really? eyes need suctioning too? who knew!). I told him it hurt and he put more numbing drops in which helped a lot. I didn’t even feel the left eye because of all the numbing goodies. There was one part when he was working on my right eye that everything was black. My left eye was covered, so of course that was black, but I was very aware of my right eye being propped open and I could see NOTHING. Thankfully, I’d been warned about that and it lasted for less than 5 seconds. I didn’t have the temporary blindness with the left eye, I think because the cover slipped off my right eye so I could see something and my brain compensated for the lack of vision in the left.

Besides the brief pain in my right eye, the thing I liked least was when the laser was going. You can hear the buzz of the laser which sounded like a saw, and I could smell the cautery. Literally burning my eyeballs and I’m smelling burnt cornea. Gross.

The whole procedure took about 20 minutes and I could see right away. I came home, took the 2nd sweet sweet Xanax they gave me, wore some super cool safety goggles and passed out from 6pm-6am. I woke up once at 4.45am and looked across at the clock and could SEE! For the first time in nearly 20 years I can see. My post op appointment was at 8am the next morning and I’ve got 20/15 vision. Boo yah.

Now I’m a couple days out and I’m starting to get bored at home. I can’t work out. I can’t wear eye make up (hence I’m not going out). I can’t watch tv for too long. I can’t be on the computer too long. I can’t read for too long. What am I supposed to doooooo? Needless to say, my fridge is stocked with new meals and my house is spotless. I get headaches at the end of the day from doing too much of the aforementioned forbidden things and my eyes are itchy/dry, I’m also a little light sensitive and am the cool cat who wears sunglasses inside… all of which is normal. Now I have to be diligent about my eye drops for the next couple months. 4 sets of drops 4x/day. And the drops spill out of my eyes and make me all crusty eye. And you can’t rub the crust out. Gross.

All in all, this was one of the best decisions I’ve made. For those lucky peeps who have perfect vision (ahem, Judester!), you’ll never quite understand. But for us blindies out there, wow it really is a whole new world. I feel like I have contacts in… except I see better than with my contacts. A friend who’s had the surgery said there are 2 surgeries he’d recommend to anyone – Lasik and… well ask his wife what the 2nd surgery he’d recommend is…

I have had glasses since I was 8 years old. My Pops has glasses, my sisters have glasses, most of my relatives have glasses… Thanks to my awesome gene pool, glasses were inevitable for me.

I started out with the huge janky glasses that took up half my face (realizing now this might have contributed to my “uncool” status in middle school…).

I finally was allowed to get contacts when I turned 14, and oh the world was beautiful again! I could SEE! I remember leaving the Optometrists office wearing my new eyeballs and proclaiming to my Mom (who had perfect vision… unfair, right!) that I could finally see what she sees and not behind any coke bottle lenses.

However, the novelty of contacts shortly wore off. When I realized they left me with dry eyes, and they stung when I got sweaty or swam. That they’d occasionally fall behind my eyeball and I’d have to dig around my eye to find them. And then I had to start paying for them and realized vision insurance and changing your lenses every 2 weeks was not as fun as I thought. However, I’d already tasted the sweet freedom of not having 4 eyes, and I swore I’d never go back to glasses full time.

Plus a couple bouts of cheapy, ugly glasses from Walmart renewed my vow to wear those stupid contacts until they became another layer of my eyeball. I wouldn’t be caught dead in those frames! But then I got some cute hip specs and was more apt to allowing the public to see me in them, however my love for contacts was still greater than my love for hip specs. I mean, they were cute and all but I still didn’t have the clip on sunglass frames, and how in the WORLD am I going to survive California sun sans clip on sunglasses? So my love-hate relationship with my contacts continued. I wore my contacts until my eyes hurt but I was able to wear my sunnies. Muy importante in the land of the sun 360 days a year.

But… my relationship with my bad eyes is coming to an end. I’m taking the plunge. Today I am getting my eyeballs cut out and replaced for a spry young pair. Today is the last day I’ll have bad vision. Today is the last day of a 2 week pre-op prep of me having to wear my cute hip specs (which are becoming WAY less cute the more I wear them… imagine running and working out with those bad boys bouncing all over my face) Lasik it is, baby! The Mister got his done a couple months ago and has absolutely LOVED it. And he can see! I’m a little nervous about today… I mean, you only have one pair of eyes. They screw those up = they screw me up = me sans job, sans running, sans driving, etc. But they’re going to give me a couple Xanax and I think I’l be coo (but I’m pretty high anxiety so I’m hoping they give me a few more Xanax…)

So the surgery itself is apparently cake walk – takes like 20 minutes and you go home, pop some more Xanax and sleep. However, I realize I’m too vain for this because for another week post-op I can’t work out or wear makeup. So if you see that frumpy sweats lady wearing sunglasses inside, that’s probably me hiding my atrophying body and sun damaged face. In fact never mind, you won’t see me that week post-op. I’m going to be really busy with uh… laundry and things, washing my hair, ya know.

So are there any blind people out there who want a pair of cute specs with a prescription of “almost legally blind?”