I took the plunge today. I went for the laser eye surgery that I’ve been telling myself I would do someday, but never got around to it.

I called them up last week and asked to go for the free consultation. I went and bing bang boom I had an appointment for the following week to get it done.

I went in this morning. It is a very soothing environment. They have chocolate chip cookies laid out, soft leather couches, BBC’s Planet Earth playing on the big screen TVs hung on the wall. Very clean cut, smiling, friendly staff wandering around calmly. The gave me an Ativan and a surgical cap and off to the operating room I went.

The procedure only took about 10 minutes to do both eyes. From my perspective, it wasn’t too, too bad. The doctor put this contraption in my eye socket to hold back my eye lids and then he taped back my eyelashes. A little uncomfortable but no problems. Then he said that I will feel a little pressure. He took this thing and laid it directly on my eyeball. He said he was going to gently press to create sucket. No problem I thought. He started to push and push, and PUSH. HolymotherofGodI’mgonnahaveeyesinthebackofmyhead! Then he stopped. I think that he does that only so you won’t be freaked out when they shave a layer off your eye directly in your line of sight, fold that back like they were opening a trap door and then proceed to burn off layers of your lens. You can actully smell burning flesh. But, I thought, thank GOD it wasn’t that unholy pressure like before. All things are relative.

Then they did the other eye. Same thing… at least this time I didn’t believe him when he said it would be a little pressure.

Outside of that, the procedure was painless, and only mildly uncomfortable. Nine hours later, I’m still putting hourly drops in my eyes. (My eyes are closed while I’m typing most of this, as I’m supposed to stay away from TV and computers for a couple of days.) They just feel a little stingy, ichy and gritty.

I recommend the procedure. I can see better already. But, if you are considering getting it done, DON’T WATCH THE FOLLOWING VIDEO!!! It appears to be an accurate depiction of what happened to me.

It looks much worse than it was.

Oct 30 update: I got the operation a week ago today. Later that day and for the next two days, my vision was perfect. I could see clearer and crisper than ever. The next couple of days, however, my eyes felt glossed over in the morning, but they cleared up in the afternoon. Now, since yesterday, my vision has gotten steadily blurrier. Now it’s worse than it ever was. I can usually see my computer screen clearly, even without corrective lenses, but it looks blurry to me now. I don’t know if this is part of the normal healing process or not. I have a follow-up appointment tomorrow morning… I’ll post an update then.

Nov 3 update: The appointment with the clinic revealed that I had REALLY dry eyes. This was one of the potential side effects of the surgery. The doctor wasn’t very reassuring to me when he said that it wasn’t the worse case he’d ever seen. Gee thanks. But, he recommended a different kind of eyedrops and I’ve been using them religiously. Since, my eyesight has been constantly improving and I’m more reassured of a complete recovery…

Nov 11 update: Another week of pouring chemicals into my eyes and I’m almost completely recovered. My eyesight is near perfect. Sometimes they feel a little dry and itchy, but less and less so each day. I just re-watched the video above and it still turns my stomach. I recommend the surgery, but you should do it completely ignorant of the gory details.