Laser Eye Surgery
American's, as a whole, are still vain. I, as an american, am still vain. I've given up on the whole contacts thing after my last surge of vanity, but I was still looking to improve my looks, and the way I see. Over the past few months several people at work have had laser surgery for their eyes. No contacts, no ugly glasses, and no maintanence. On top of all that, what's the worst that could happen. Well, for those of you who really want to know what the worst thing that could happen is they could use too much power and cut a hole through the back of my your head. Yeah, pretty scary, but what the heck, I'm an american!
The first visit was kinda like your average trip to the death star, only without the satisfaction of destroying all the whiney people on Aldaran. Lots of weird chairs with lots of scopes to look into. This time they decided to put some drops in my eye to dialate them. "Oh, don't worry," the nurse said happily, "everything will be a bit bright but it will go away in a few hours." Again with the weird battery of tests such as the numerous identicle looking lenses to look through, the fuzzy wall picture that they pretend has letters on it, and the like. On the bright side, I didn't have to do the twister (Glaucoma test) but there was one thing new, they had to test the pressure in my eye ball. As far as unpleasant experiences, this rates right up there with anal probes and trying to take out contacts. A small device is pressed gently (french for really hard) against your eyeball. "This is going to feel a little uncomfortable," the doctor would joke in his french language.
Three days later my eyes were still dialated, or more to the point, one of them was. A few hours my butt...
On the day of the actuall surgery I was gathered together with four other victims and lead into a small room. We joked a little to avoid letting any know how nervous we were. The nurses came in a few minutes laters and offered some drugs to everyone to help us relax. I don't take drugs if I can avoid it, and these were optional, so I figured if you really need them they wouldn't be optional, no matter how strongly the nurse recommended it. Thinking back, I wonder why I ever thought I would be able to relax while someone jammed something metal into my eye socket, sliced off a layer of my eye, and then proceeded to burn away the tissue. Perhaps it's because I'm so manly and brave. Then again, those of you who know me will probably figure that it's because I'm stupid... I'm going to have to agree with the later catagory, but don't let me sway any of you from thinking how brave I am.
Everyone always says it doesn't hurt... well I sure felt a slight pain in my eye, although it was pretty brief, but that's not the bad part, the smell is. I don't want to discourage you from partaking in the joy of pointing high powered laser at your eyes, despite knowing that low powered ones will blind you, but the smell... eww... reminded me of burning hair, only it was my eyes...
I will say one thing, the actuall surgery was over quick. Despite me being so tense that you could cut diamonds with my nipples, from the time I lay down at the table to the time I stood up from the table was about 5 minutes. I was actually able to walk away under my own power, and since I didn't take any drugs for it, I was able to immediatly enjoy looking out of my two newly enhanced eyes and stare at the backs of the plastic plates placed over my eyes so I wouldn't look around.
All said and done, I love not wearing glasses. If I could do it all over again, I'd do it in a heart beat... but this time I think I'd take the drugs.