Laser eye surgery

First off, my apologies for taking so long to post again. Here is the story of my laser eye surgery. Settle in – it’s going to be a long post.

From my previous post it was clear that I had some anxiety about having the Epi-LASIK procedure. I don’t like things touching my eyes.

Diane picked me up and we headed to the Mitchell Eye Centre a little bit early for my appointment. When we arrived we went over to the consultant’s desk and she gave an overview again of their basic "risks" and we cleared up payment for the surgery. Then I asked for the chill pill to calm my nerves. I was fairly calm, but under the skin I could tell my heart was beating harder than if I was sleeping in on a Sunday morning. It gave me a distinct thumping feeling throughout my body. My pulse was fine but my heart was working hard.

About 20 minutes later, there I was: laying on the operating table waiting for the surgeon. The tech put some numbing drops in my eyes and I waited for what felt like an hour and must have been about 15 minutes. The surgeon tapped my leg when he entered the room and greeted me. With a patch on one eye and bright lights in the other, the touch was calming but my heart was still trying to bash through my ribs make a quick getaway.

My right eye was clamped open – quite uncomfortably and I let out a little noise to let the doctor know how I felt. He sorted it out and then placed a device over my eye.

"You will feel some pressure, your eye will black out and you will hear a noise." The surgeon said.

I got a little more than I had bargained for.

My vision, staring up at the bright white and green lights turned into a scene from Close Encounters of the Third Kind. And then from the outside in, it blacked out as if pulling the plug on an old black and white TV. Now with only my thoughts to keep me calm, the vibrating noise started. Watching the Epi-LASIK procedure on the Internet, there was no sound. I hadn’t expected a vibrating sound like a beard trimmer.

"Keep calm C.J. – everything will be ok." I thought to myself.

Then I could feel a bit of a grinding feeling on my eye.

"Keep calm C.J. – everything will be ok." It was all I could think of. That is, until my thoughts shifted altogether.

While still trying to look for the lights, longing for the spaceship lights, my thoughts began to wander to other things. "Orange is a totally underrated colour" I thought. "Yeah, orange is a good colour."

And then I felt like Winston at the end of his re-integration in George Orwell’s Nineteeneightyfour:

Two gin-scented tears trickled down the sides of his nose. But it was all right, everything was all right, the struggle was finished. He had won the victory over himself. He loved big brother.

The light returned and I heard a voice. It was Dr. Mitchell, "Have you ever fainted before?" he asked. I replied with a question of my own. "Are you finished?"

Unfortunately the answer was no. "We couldn’t continue until you regained consciousness."

I was pissed. Never having fainted before, I then asked, "What? I fainted? What are you talking about?" Someone then lifted one of my legs back on to the operating table. That’s when I realized that orange may not be so underrated and I had my very own visit with my ‘happy place’.

"Take your time, we’ll get you some juice." Dr. Mitchell said, "We’ll continue in a few minutes once you’ve gathered yourself."

I got some juice but couldn’t drink it because I couldn’t hold myself up. In fact, I couldn’t hold the juice either. My hands were completely numb. I tried to move them and couldn’t. I just stared at my hands trying to will them to move and nothing worked.

After a couple of minutes, I could move my hands again. "I need to go to the bathroom. Now." I told the tech.

I made my way to the bathroom with the help of the tech and my body decided it didn’t like anything that was inside of it – so it had a hellfire clearance sale. Nausea began to swell in my stomach but I didn’t throw up.

Over the next 20 minutes, I repeated that exercise three times. Just when I thought I was empty, my body found more to get rid of. "Normally we continue the procedure after about 10 minutes" the surgeon said, "I’ve never seen this before. Sometimes young athletic men faint, but not like this."

Great. This surgeon has been practicing since 1984 (coincidentally) and has never seen someone react so strongly to this procedure. Not a good way to feel special.

The surgeon put a protective lens in my eye and I stayed in an examination room with Diane for about three hours trying to will myself back to a state where I could continue with the procedure. It wouldn’t happen today.

The bright spot for me was the kindness of everyone in the office that day. I never felt rushed to continue the procedure. We got a garbage bag for the drive home – I knew I’d need it.

The pain in my eye was annoying but not intense on the way home. My nausea was the focus of my discomfort. Diane drove as smoothly as possible for the 20-minute trek back to my condo downtown. About halfway I filled the garbage bag. She didn’t flinch or say anything. I didn’t want her to say anything, I just wanted to turn my stomach inside out and leave it in the bag.
After vomiting I felt a billion times better. Arriving home I set my alarm for two hours later and went to bed. Every two hours I would have to get up to put drops in my eye to keep it moist.
Waking up every two hours means you spend a lot of time trying to sleep and actually spending the time thinking. My thoughts ranged from never going back to convincing myself by the morning that the hard part was over and the laser was just a formality.

The next morning I called Dr. Mitchell’s office to find out when I could go back in. Fortunately it was by 11:00 AM. I wanted to get this over with.

Arriving at the clinic I didn’t have the same pounding heart as I did the day before. I was far more relaxed and ready to handle what was to come my way.

This time the surgeon came in shortly after I did into the operating room. He asked how I was feeling and I felt good. The tech was a woman this time and I found that to be more calming than the man the day before. "Yeah, way more people faint when he is the tech," the woman said. "We’ve been bugging him about it ever since he started here."

I got a stress ball and we continued the procedure starting with removing the protective lens and lasering my right eye.

The lights were like a Pink Floyd show and it was difficult to focus on the laser. There was a breeze and the smell of hair burning for about 30 seconds. No problem.

My left eye was completed with a procedure that doesn’t involve putting any pressure on it but that takes longer to heal called LASEK. With LASEK, an alcohol solution is used to soften the outer layer of one’s eye. I could smell the alcohol and see the liquid on my eye but it didn’t bother me. I would get through this.

The procedure was complete and I felt fine. Fine except for the burning and stinging feeling that was starting to swell in my eyes. I wanted a cinnamon roll and Diane and I stopped to grab one before heading home.

By the time I got home I couldn’t open my eyes because of the stinging. Once again I would set my alarm for every two hours to put drops in and I headed to bed right away. The pain was becoming intense and my eyes were gushing tears like a Las Vegas water fountain. I took a painkiller to help me sleep.

The next day I spent in bed and didn’t do much of anything, I could see a bit about six feet in front of me.

Day two after the surgery was by far the most painful. On Saturday night my eyes were sealing themselves shut with my eyelid sticking to the protective lens. The pain was sharp and sudden when I attempted to open my eyes to put the drops in. Suddenly the burning and stinging feeling seemed like a warm cup of cocoa compared to the sharpness of opening my eyes. I poked myself in the eyes a couple of times trying to get the drops in.

I stayed in bed all day on Sunday and struggled to open my eyes much at all. The guide I was given said that my vision would seem clear at first and would go downhill until the protective lenses were removed five days later. Downhill was an understatement.

For the next three days I kept myself busy by sweeping my floor, vacuuming and listening to a book on CD. By the end of the third day most of the pain had subsided but I could only see shapes and colours. I could focus on nothing. My vision was downright bad.

Those who know me well know that I struggle with doing nothing. I get bored easily and laying in bed blind for four days was driving me nuts. I looked forward to my appointment to have the protective lenses removed. My ugly duckling vision would be transformed into a beautiful swan view of the world.

To say I was excited to have the lenses removed is an understatement. Diane picked me up and we headed to the clinic. A woman I had never met before took me into a room with eye examination equipment and turned an eye chart on.

"Look over there," she said, "Tell me what the letters are."

I replied, "I don’t know. I can’t see them."

She moved the line up to a bigger one and asked again. Still nothing. Next line up on the chart, nothing. One more line up with the letters getting bigger yet. Nothing.

Finally she moved the chart up one more line. I couldn’t read it and told her so.

"What do you mean you can’t read it?!" she asked.

I responded, "I know it’s an "E" because it’s the biggest letter on the chart but I can’t read it."

That’s when I got angry and scared. Within a minute I was in to see the surgeon in another examination room. He put a machine up to my eyes, examined them and pulled the contacts out of my eyes.

"Your vision will be a bit blurry while your eyelid smoothes the surface of your eye." He said.

"What, are you kidding? I asked. "I can’t see a damn thing!"

He started writing on my chart as we talked for a minute and I told him that I couldn’t see much of anything. Then I remembered that I could see a couple of inches in front of my nose. I put my hand up to my face and said, "I can see here but that’s it!"

Dr. Mitchell’s response was not what I expected, nor did it inspire much confidence.

"Oh." He said and began crossing out his notes on my chart. His response was in a tone that showed some surprise, some disappointment and a sigh that reeked of complexity.

"You are seeing about a –4.00 right now." He continued after a significant pause. "You need to take the drops only once a day instead of three times a day."

For context, I was seeing with a +3.25 prescription prior to the surgery. I swung across the pendulum of vision from one extreme to the other. According to the schedule, I was supposed to be able to see by now. I was scheduled to return to work the next day. How quickly those plans changed. My vision didn’t turn into a beautiful swan as I had hoped. Worse, I went from an ugly ducking to feeling like a sitting duck.

The surgeon asked me to book an appointment for the next week indicating that a follow-up usually takes place a month later. I was special and wishing I wasn’t.

Over the course of the next week my emotions would fluctuate far more than my vision which made slow progress. Every day I’d take a rough measurement of my focal length. It went from about three inches to just over a foot in a week. This would be a slow go.

I tried to stay as positive and optimistic as possible. A gift basket was delivered from work. They were very supportive and the basket was a pleasant surprise for me. Another colleague sent me some Big Turk candy bars, which became my comfort food. I spent a lot of time contemplating my future, the future of the trip and what my world would look like if my vision didn’t recover. The fear was intimidating but my energy needed to be focused on healing.

On Wednesday, eight days after registering –4.00 (ish) on the eye chart I went back to the clinic for another exam. This time I could see much better and could read part of the chart. Progress! It was blurry, but I could still read it. I had double vision but at least I could see. The tech told me my prescription had changed to about –1.50. The tech said this recovery still seemed slow and he told me that I was likely having a reaction to the steroid drops. He asked me to stop using them altogether and said that I should see a significant improvement over the next four or five days. Thank goodness he would be right.

When your vision is messed up as badly as mine had become, you start to wonder if your progress is real or imagined. Over the next few days I know there was real progress. It was still blurry, but at least I could focus on things that were across the room.

On Monday (February 5) I decided to return to work. My double vision was still a problem but I hope it will continue to heal and improve over the next few months. It was nice to be back in a place where I could start to function again and have some mental stimulation. There are days at the beginning where I had not even left my condo and now I was able to spend some time at the office.

I pushed it too hard the first day back and headed home in the afternoon and had a long nap.
Today I headed back to work and my vision seems a little worse than yesterday. Double vision has killed the sharpness of my vision but I realize I have come an enormous way since having the surgery nearly thee weeks ago. The fear is beginning to subside and I have an enormous empathy for those with vision problems that cannot be corrected.

These have been the hardest three weeks of my adult life.

More to come...