Lasik Surgery: After the Laser

I’ve been looking back at my Lasik journey these past few weeks, talking about how I made the decision, the process leading up to it, and then the surgery itself. So now – what comes after the surgery, and I mean right after? This is my second to last post, where I’ll talk about the day of surgery and the week after. My last post will be the wrap-up, my final thoughts on Lasik.

But for now, I’ll start with when the second laser finished its work and I was helped off the chair. The doctors had said I would be able to see right away, but that wasn’t quite true, mostly because my eyes were stinging and hard to keep open with the massive amount of drops that were in them. I was helped into another chair, this one sitting upright so the doctor could look into my eyes, then I was helped into a small waiting area – and there was Mitch! I was to stay there for 10-20 minutes to make sure…nothing terrible happened I guess. While I was waiting, my eyes started to burn – and it was intense. I asked Mitch to talk to me, to tell me anything, because I wanted to keep my mind off the pain. Shortly after, I was checked one more time, giving the big goofy black sunglasses, and sent on my way. I was given a Tylenol PM right before surgery, as they advise you to sleep for 4-6 hours immediately after. I came home and fell into bed, and luckily fell asleep right away. When I woke up – the burning in my eyes was gone. But that’s not the best part – I could see! I could read the numbers on the alarm clock across the room, something I hadn’t been able to do without the help of glasses since I was nine years old. It was thrilling.

From that time forward, I had no pain in my eyes. No burning, stinging, nothing. But what I did have – an eyedrop schedule. I touched on the drops a bit earlier, but seriously – so many eyedrops. I wrote out a schedule of each time I needed what drop, as I had four to take, and some I was taking every 15 minutes. Also, they stressed to wear sunglasses even at night if I went outside, because I did not want debris to get in my eye. I also couldn’t wear eye makeup, and had to be very careful in the shower. Since my cornea was just lifted from my eye, it needed time to heal and reattach itself, so there could be no hard rubbing of the eye as well. What about at night you ask? It could be so easy to wake up in the morning and vigorously give your eyes a rub. Well, the solution to that is to look like a bug-eyed alien. LasikPlus gave me two clear eye thingies, with small holes in each so I could still see out of them. They went over each eye and made my fiancé crack up upon seeing them.

The best part was being able to see instantly. People kept asking me if I could see or if things were blurry or if I still needed glasses or contacts at all. I could see clear, I could see things in the distant, I could see without the help of glasses or contacts. It was very strange to wake up in the morning and not reach for my glasses on my nightstand, like I had been doing for the past 17 years of my life. I did run into some dry eye issues and I’ll go into that in my last post, so be sure to check back next week for that!