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Zapped

The SO went and got LASIK'ed because she wanted to get rid of her contacts before our wedding photos. She had thick glasses and a long history of wearing hard contacts, so it took her a while to recover, but still in time to look good for our photo session. Not to mention the convenience and freedom of leaving the glasses and contacts behind.

I've been tempted by Laser-Assisted In Situ Keratomileusis surgery in the past, but the potential risk and side-effects seemed a bit scary, especially considering that my eyes weren't even that bad, i.e. I can read and websurf without the glasses on. After the SO went through all the trouble to ditch her glasses, I wasn't going to wear my glasses during the photo session either. Unfortunately, somewhere in the middle of a park in Danshui my glasses probably fell out of my pocket as the photographer posed us in physically contorting but visually appealing positions.

So now I don't have glasses. I could still go to work in front of a computer, but I couldn't watch TV, which was absolutely intolerable. LASIK is big business in Taiwan, where more than 10% of the kids are already myopic by the time they enter elementary school. SO's doc has been doing the procedure for 15 years, and even paying extra for the experienced hands the price was half the cost in the States. Hey, the evaluation exam was free. I was only mildly myopic with a touch of astigmatism, so no need for heavy-duty zapping, more like a mild touch-up. Never wore contacts so the old cornea is in good shape, with good thickness, enough for a second follow-up op worse comes to worst. Pretty much the ideal candidate. Okay, what the heck, pay up for the big-name doc and the fancy wavefront machine and sign up for surgery on Saturday.

They said to be prepared to spend two to three hours at the clinic, which turned out to be accurate, although most of the time was spent waiting for the doc to work his way through the crowd there that day. Plenty of time to charge my credit card. The nurses rack 'em up and the doc mowed 'em down, about 30 minutes a pop. Nice gig if you can get it, but of course it must've took a long time (and perhaps a few malpractice settlements) to build up the reputation. Finally got around to my turn and the nurse took me into the anteroom to put on the cap-and-gown, sterilize the area around my eyes, and give the first of many doses of the anesthetic eyedrops. Just got a glimpse of the previous patient shuffling blindly out the exit as I entered the OR. The doc was already punching in my settings as I shuffled onto the operating platform and wedged my head into the designated indentation. They're nice enough to pull a blanket over me in the heavily air-conditioned room, and gave me a cute, well-used sunflower throw pillow to hug and grab onto during the procedure. A plastic sheet is stuck over my face to protect the sterilized field and quadruple the sense of claustrophobia at the same time. A final wiggle to get comfortable, then it was time to get the show on the road.

Blinking would be bad. So the first thing is to put in the eyelid retractors. After liberally dousing with anesthetic drops, the nurse placed the cold metal retractor into the eye, and with a creaky ratcheting sound wedged my eyelids open further than they've ever opened before. The nurse reminded me to stare at the target light, a green LED and a red laser. All very A Clockwork Orange. To this point it was only slightly disturbing, but when I heard the keratome (the fancy word for really-sharp-blade-to-slice-eyes-open) spin up the heart rate bumped up quite a bit. A vacuum pump grabbed onto the corneal surface and I could hear the squeal of the blade swiping across to slice it open. That's when it got scary, uncomfortable, and temporarily, or so I hoped, blind. The green target light is just a big blurry circle at this point, as the red laser continually scanned the eye surface to keep the big laser on track. Heard a big relay click as the excimer laser powered up, then it was zap, zap, zap as the machine vaporized bits of cornea, complete with wisp of smoke and smell of burnt flesh.

Even in the blurry cornea-open state, I could see the halo of the target light change as the laser did its reshaping job. Finally, with a swipe of a feathery wand, the doc moved the corneal flap back into place and the image snapped into focus. Seem to be clearer than before, I think? A few more brushes to smooth out any wrinkles in the corneal surface, and that was that. Except for that other eye yet to be done. Oh, crap.

Went through the whole torturous sequence again, and this time when the doc put the flap back into place, I could actually see the shining chip and the bonding-wire within the LED target light, which at least reassured me that there wasn't any major screw-ups in the process. A minute to relax and recover, then they hustled me out of the OR and sent me home. Thankfully the SO was waiting for me and we had enough time to take a taxi home and lie down before the anesthetic drops wore off and my wounded eyes began to really sting. Couldn't do much for the rest of the afternoon other than lie in bed and let the tears flow, but the worst of it was over by dinnertime and I could at least see well enough to go out to get something to eat, although I must've looked quite bleary.

After a good night's sleep, I was able to pretty much go about my business without glasses, so long as I kept the saline drops coming to keep the eyes from drying out, which will improve over time or so they say. The eye muscles are still getting used to being able to focus on all distances, but it's looking good so far. Hopefully I'll be a happy statistic instead of a horror story.

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Based on the demographics, it was surprising that a high-brow luxury brand like Acura got on board. But as I was listening to the recent Radio Without Borders episodes a newcomer joined the advertising parade. Namely, Pabst Blue Ribbon, the ultra-cheap, low-brow beer. Speaking as more of a Sierra Nevada Pale Ale kind of guy, it certainly seemed like a different angle than Acura.

Turned out that PBR is so un-hip that it actually managed to circled around and became hip again (with some marketing help, of course). Not sure how more-indie-than-thou music will inspire me to start drinking cheap beer, but I'm certainly grateful for the quality tunes to cushion the grind of daily commute.