Surgery Here I Come

Yesterday I had a consultation at Lasik MD to see if my eyeballs qualified for laser eye surgery.

So yay, they do!

Now begins the journey towards lasers doin their thang to my eyes…or I suppose its more like I am beginning Stage 2 of the journey since I’d like to think all the research I did prior to my consultation counts as part of the journey. What can I say, I need to validate all the time I spent searching and reading and learning since it appears most people don’t really do all that much research…they just kinda assume the peeps at the laser surgery places will tell them everything and they don’t need to take any responsibility for what will be happening to their eyes. What’s with that?

Anywaaaaays…

In preparation for the consultation I had to not wear my contacts for minimum 24 hours prior to my appointment, I had to take sunglasses with me, the box for my current contacts and, hmm, that’s about it. Oh! I had to arrange for a ride home because my eyes would be blurry and light sensitive and I wouldn’t be able to drive.

Lucky for me I have a friend who was willing to drive me. 🙂

They never did bother to look at the box for my current contacts, I’m not sure if that is because they knew they would get that info from my eye doc when they sent in the request for medical records form (had to fill that out when I arrived) or because they forgot, or because they don’t reeeeeally need it. Whatever the reason I don’t think it is that big of a deal.

After filling out some paperwork I went in to a room with a row of 3 eye testing machines. I am not sure what the first machine did but I am fairly certain machines 2 and 3 were being used to partially blind me lol I’m joking! Machines 2 and 3 had my eyes being exposed to super bright lights, one in a striped pattern which made me think of those turning circle things that are used to try to hypnotize people…

Many pictures were take of my eyes from those machines when they were doing their thing. I think they were taking pics of the back of my eyeballs but I really don’t know. Whatever they were, none of them hurt or felt even slightly invasive, they are nothing worse than what you might have done when at your regular eye doc appointment.

Then I was escorted back to the waiting room but before I could sit a second person came out and called me in to her room of machines. There I did the read-the-letters tests multiple times, learned my left eye is dominant, had more bright lights shone in my eyes, had my eyeballs dilated and was then let loose to the waiting room again. There was a 10-15 minute wait for the eye dilating drops to fully take effect so I sat there with a hot chocolate wishing I could see my phone but unable to because ya know, my eyes couldn’t focus. sigh.

Fun fact! Most everyone has a dominant eye. Most people’s dominant eye matches their dominant hand, so if you are right handed your right eye will be dominant. I am the anomaly. I am right handed but my left eye is dominant. The person checking my eyes who tested that said it could be that I was supposed to be left handed but was raised right handed, what is this, the dark ages? That is so not it! Or I could be partially ambidextrous, which I figure is the closer of the two answers. I do some stuff with my left hand that you’d think I’d do with my right since I’m right handed but it feels more natural to use my left hand, shrug. Sometimes I will purposefully do something with my left hand because I read it is good for our brain health to use both hands for things, so I try to use my left hand for say, putting on face moisturizer because theoretically it will help my brain. Is it true? Who knows! Does it make a difference in my day to do something left handed? Nope. So might as well do it. 🙂

Ok, back to testing!

I got called in to room number 3 by person number 3. He did even more eye tests, two of which I found highly interesting. To test the thickness of my cornea he jabbed, ok fine, tapped, my eyeball with two different um…things? Tools! I guess I should say tools lol Before doing this he put numbing drops in my eyes so I didn’t feel it, and I didn’t. It was so strange though, knowing someone was touching my eye with a metal thing-a-ma-jig and not being able to feel it. Oh he also did this thing with, get this, another bright light! lol where I could see the back of my eye in my vision field. Man I love weird stuff like that. Imagine those pictures you have seen of a dessert with cracks in the ground that are thin and spread all over the place, got it? That is what it looked like, just not that colour lol Don’t worry! It is normal! It isn’t because my eye is super dry or anything, it is just that I could see the blood vessels at the back of the eye…seriously, so cool! Why didn’t I become an eye doc? They apparently get to look at interesting things every day.

Not my eyeball! 

So yeah, after guy number 3 finished with his tests he took a look at the results he got plus the results from the other tests I went through and it was determined I am a candidate for laser eye surgery.

After all that I damn well better be! lol 😉

He went over the two types of surgery there are, Lasik or PRK. I had already done a huuuuuge amount of research on both types so what he was telling me I already knew, although I did ask for some clarification of things. Then I pulled out my notebook and asked all the questions I had written down because I knew I would forget when in the office.

Poor guy. I don’t think he knew what hit him.

He said he’d never been asked so many questions and made a comment about how for once he wasn’t just repeating all the same things. Looks like I made him earn his paycheque that day! lol

I was asking about the technology, the procedure, the post op care, all of it, and was happy with his answers.

In the end, because I qualified for both types of surgery, it was up to me to pick which one I wanted and even though it has the longer more painful recovery I chose PRK because all the research I did leads me to believe that is the better option.

After my convo with person number 3 I went back to the waiting room, thank god they have such comfy couches lol and eventually got called in by person number 4 who is there to discuss surgery dates and pre-op stuff and payment.

By the end of the approx 2 hours I was there I’d had one delish cookie, one ok cup of hot chocolate and walked out of there with a surgery date and the mixed feelings of excitement and nervousness…all in all a productive day.

Then I spent the rest of the day doing nothing because my eyes hurt, well, more like ached, and they were still dilated so everything seemed very bright…

These are my eyes! Look at the pupil size, you’d think I was high or something lol

Tags: blind, dilated eyes, dominant eye, eye testing, laser eye surgery, Lasik MD