Lasik, Round Two

Last May I took the plunge and had Lasik done on both eyes. A detailed description of that procedure can be found here. (And by the way, that post gets the most Google hits out of all of mine. I guess Lasik is more interesting that the funny things my kids say.)

I've been back to the doctor multiple times during the last year, and my left eye has consistently been worse than my right. Now let's be clear, I used to see 20/400 out of my left eye, and post-Lasik it varied between 20/40 and 20/100. So both measurements were better than before. But, I paid $2400 for that eye to be fixed, and so when my doctor offered to do an "enhancement" for free, I thought I should take advantage of it.

Yesterday I went back to the Laser center and had it tweaked. I got briefed, prepped (God bless Valium!), and walked into the laser room. There I lay down on the reclining chair and felt the inflatable pillow lock my head into place. An assistant applied the duct tape to my eyelids to keep them open, and then that uncomfortable speculum got inserted to keep me from blinking. After a few more numbing drops, I was good to go.

First the doctor needed to relift the original corneal flap instead of cutting a new one. That was a little disturbing, since she was using what appeared to be a dental tool to gently lift the flap. It took a short while, but I could tell when she'd succeeded because my vision suddenly got very hazy, like I was looking through Vaseline. Then they had me stare at the blinking red light and zap, zap, zap, my eye got lasered. And the smell of burning flesh was apparent this time, too. The doctor then took a spatula and spent several minutes smoothing down the flap. I'm so thankful my doctor is a perfectionist, because there is a greater chance of having corneal scar tissue form when the flap is relifted. But she smoothed and tucked and finally declared it "perfect," which is always a good word to hear when someone's poking at your eyeball.

I went home and tried to take a long nap, but I woke up several times. My eye stung and itched, so tears were streaming out of it while I slept. Last night it felt a little itchy, but I'm not experiencing the dryness that I had last year. I'm doing the regimen of drops every four hours (last year it was every hour for the first day), and so far so good.

Update: I went for a vision test this afternoon and could read the 20/20 line perfectly and could guess my way through the 20/15 line. I'm impressed.