I had a checkup appointment with the Lasik MD clinic today.

We’re at just over 3 months now since I had PRK Laser eye surgery, can you believe it? What a ride it has been so far. The first week was pure, unadulterated hell, and I was in agony. The weeks after were a nightmare of blurry vision, extremely dry eyes, inability to focus on ANYTHING, and, always in the back of my mind, the nagging feeling that I’d made the worst mistake of my entire life. This carried on for weeks. At the end of April I was at my wit’s end, and being very vocal about it at the Lasik offices. They referred me to a second surgeon – remember Dr. Dipstick? The therapy he prescribed meant another week of hell, this time with even worse vision, and stinging eye drops. I couldn’t drive and could barely focus well enough to see the huge monitor in front of me as I worked. Headache for a solid week. I was positive they were grasping at straws, knowing I was volatile, and simply trying to put off the inevitable detonation.

Colour me surprised then, when the week was up and I removed the contacts so I could drive myself to the clinic (30 mins away) and… *gasp* my world came into focus!

Dipstick though he certainly was, it seems he knew what he was doing! The contacts and drops (I guess) further healed and trained (?) my eyes to the point where it made a dramatic difference. You have no idea how relieved I have been since that day. My eyes continue to improve – slowly but surely. My left eye is now 20/20, and my right eye is 20/30 (not as good) due to the residual astigmatism that was not fully corrected. The doctor I saw today said that my vision has not yet stabilized, and further improvement is to be expected. Because I am left-eye-dominant, I’m not bothered at all by the weaker right eye, and I will NOT be having a “touch up” this summer. My choice, but I don’t see that it’s necessary if I’m happy with my vision. Another relief.

So have I changed my tune where PRK is concerned? As relieved as I am, and even though I can see quite well now after 3 months, NO, I haven’t changed my attitude towards it. I still maintain that had I been told the truth about what I was going to go through that first week and the weeks that followed, I probably would never have gone through with it. That kind of thing – that kind of trauma – stays with you, and it’s going to be a long time before I can get past it.

This morning as I was leaving the clinic I rode the elevator down with the mom of a patient who was at that very moment having PRK performed. She was animated as she told me how he’d taken the rest of the week off work, and was looking forward to seeing perfectly within a couple weeks.

Yeahhhh.

I did not enjoy watching the colour drain from her face as I gently explained to her that the next few weeks were almost assuredly not going to go as expected. They hadn’t told him about the kind of pain he was facing, minimizing it as they had with me. They hadn’t explained to him that driving at night would be painful and potentially dangerous due to extreme light sensitivity. They hadn’t told him that he might not be seeing very well for weeks or maybe even months. I left her with some suggestions on how to keep him more comfortable for his week from hell, shook my head, and told her good luck.

Wish I’d had someone to talk to about it when I started down this path.