It's currently 7:10pm. Today, I woke up at 7:30am and went to the clinic at 10:30. My surgery was at 11:30am and my boyfriend, Matt, picked me up afterwards and took me to get my prescriptions, some lunch, and then home. I slept from about 1:30pm to 5:30pm and have been listening to a podcast (Serial) with my eyes shut since then.
So that's the summary. Here are all the gory details for anyone interested or contemplating getting a surgery like this:
Pre-Op
I wasn't allowed to eat anything solid within 4 hours of my surgery, which I found out was primarily so that the Valium works better. I also wasn't allowed to wear any makeup, hairspray, or jewelry above the neck.
I checked in and paid for the procedure, and then immediately went to get all the scans of my eye redone. These are the scans they do during the evaluation to see whether or not you're a good candidate. I think they do them again right beforehand in order to make sure they set everything up as correctly as possible.
After the scans, they gave me some valium for pain and anxiety and then they talked through all the prescriptions I'd be taking.
Then they gave me a hairnet thing and had me sit in a comfortable chair outside of the operating room with my feet up, relaxing, with my eyes closed (so they don't get dry), and letting the valium kick in. They put two drops (some sort of medication) in my eyes, and one burned a little bit but it wasn't too bad.
I prayed the rosary and asked God to bring me peace and soothe my fears and asked Mary to be there with her motherly presence since my real mother is so far away. It seemed like it helped a little bit, but maybe it was just the Valium haha,
Finally, they said I was ready and took be into the room with the lasers.
Surgery
I'm not going to sugarcoat this or try to put on a brave face - even with the valium, I was pretty terrified. I had over a year of mentally preparing for this, but I mainly through about the recovery time and didn't dwell too much on what the actual procedure would be like.
I went in and laid down and they tucked a pillow around my head to keep it from moving around too much. They also handed me a Teddy Bear. I laughed and asked if there was a story behind that and they said, "No, not really, but we also have a football if you'd rather hold that instead. However, it's a Packers football, so if you're not a Packers fan, you might not want it."
I told them I'd stick with the Teddy Bear. Although if they offered me a Bears football, I'd probably have said HELL NO.
Don't need that kind of luck...
Anyway they did one eye at a time, so they put this bandage thing over my left eye but told me it's best if I can keep both eyes open. They put numbing drops in my right eye and then taped back what the surgeon called my "luxurious eyelashes." They then used this weird spring thing which would keep my eye open for the procedure.
Then they did all sorts of stuff and I'm not sure what all of it was or was for, but I'll do my best to explain it. They poured some alcohol solution over my eye for 25 seconds straight and then did some other stuff and then washed my eye out with water. All in all, it wasn't painful, mainly just kind of blurry and a little cold when they poured the water over.
Then they told me that my job was to look at the red light and that I would need to stay focused on the red light for 60 seconds while the laser was on. So that's what I did.
I was terrified of screwing up and was just praying and encouraging myself the whole time: "God please help me stay focused on the red light. The red light is my friend. I like the red light. Red is my favorite color...."
And then it was over. And they washed my eye with water again. And I could see.
Which kinda gave me extra courage to go through it again with the other eye.
All in all, it wasn't so bad. It was over pretty quick, it smelled kinda weird but it wasn't painful. Probably the scariest moment of all was while they were pouring the alcohol solution over my left eye, everything kinda went black for a second and all I could see was the inside of the bandage in my right eye. But everything cleared up and came back after a second or two.
They told me I did a great job and that 60 seconds was a pretty long procedure (I had a strong correction). I was picked up by Matt, grabbed some prescription meds and lunch and then went home and fell asleep.
At Home Recovery
I was really worried about pain, and there's still a chance that it could get worse, but so far everything is OK. I'm a little light sensitive, but I've been using a less-bright light in my room and I turned the brightness on my phone and computer down and that seems to be working OK.
I'm supposed to keep my eyes shut as much as possible to speed up healing, but I did want to write all of this out while it was still fresh.
Pain-wise, my left eye feels kind of like my right eye did when I accidentally burned it with clear care solution a couple years ago...a little painful but not unbearable. I had a headache right after the surgery but it's gone now. I've been off the Vicodin for 2 hours or so but feel ok and will probably just take another one with some food before bed.
So that's my day! Matt is patiently waiting for me to finish this post so I should probably wrap up and spend some time with him. Thanks for all the prayers and well-wishes!
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