When it rains it pours...

OK, so Friday was the scary day. Yes, I've been preparing for the eye "procedure" for a bit - 1000mg of Vitiman C since January 1st, and started my six-day regiment of Methylprednisolone on Thursday. I was preparing for it to be simply a day of working in the morning, the "procedure", and then recovery. However, when it rains it pours.

You see, on Wednesday, the *counter people* called - they decided to come between 8 and 10 on Friday to install the new countertops, backsplash, sink, and bar. Of course, they arrived closer to ten and well, they just finished up around 3:15! Ugh. Well, fortunately, "Phase One" of the kitchen is almost complete.

But throughout this I was pretty anxious. The eye appointment was for 4:00, with a 3:30 arrival and prep. I took a valium at 2pm per instructions, which was probably good for the guys installing the counters :) I would claim the drug didn't do too much for me, but Marah said it appeared to loosen me up - as if I'd had a glass (or three) of wine.

Dr Volpicelli came in shortly before four to recheck my eyes, and then we were ready to go. We paraded out of the office, and I followed him into what I thought was the laser room. Not quite. He was stopping briefly for a drink in the coffee room. :) In my defense, I didn't have glasses on, and it seemed at the time it "could" have been the procedure room.

Anyway, the procedure was pretty quick, though I was quite anxious to steadily focus on on the eye-tracking blinking light. The anesthetics took care of numbing me to pain and pressure, but they don't really cover temperature receptors. There were a few times a cold liquid was used - I was staring at a few bright lights, and then this really cold liquid was squirted all over my eyes. Pretty bad "cold headache" - as if I ate too much ice cream or had a really cold drink quickly. Anyway, afterwards clear "bandage" contact lenses were inserted into my eyes. The original plan was for "LASEK" - doing treatment on the surface of the eye. Very similar to PRK, except in PRK the topmost epithelial cells are pushed back into place after the procedure and in LASEK they are discarded. During treatment Dr Volpicelli decided to discard the cells, so I had PRK after all.

After the procedure, we went back to the examination room, and there was a poster on the wall with graphical portions that previously had appeared to be a yellow blob when my glasses were off. Literally right after surgery, I could easily recognize that they were a face with two eyes and a nose. Marah commented that I was actually looking at her in the eye when talking to her (as opposed to generically at her face). So vision clearly had improved...though reading was a bit of a strain.

We headed home afterwards, and I curled up on the couch, had some food and fell asleep listening to NPR for almost two hours. After that, while my eyes were a bit dry, I wasn't in too much pain, and listened to some news on the TV until about nine o'clock. We went upstairs, I preemptively took a vicodin and had plastic goggles taped onto my face such that my eyes wouldn't be too disturbed while I slept. Silly photo:

I slept pretty well - I remember waking up a bit and my eyes felt dry, but I was too tired to deal with removing the goggle things to put in drops. Today I've been taking it easy. I had a follow up appointment with Dr Vopicelli in the morning. I can see reasonably well, but I wouldn't want to drive for a
few days. I can read but often there's haze and double vision -- the eye chart often had a few letter Os and Vs but they looked like an infinity and a W. But I certainly have functional vision and feel comfortable reading.

My eyes are still very dry- it's "hard" to keep my eyelids completely open. Though some of the four types of drops (painkillers, antibiotic, anti inflammitory, ...) sting a bit I'm not really in much discomfort. I am quite sensitive to light - as if my pupils have been dilated, but a bit
worse. Even if I close my eyes and wear the sunglasses I was given, being outside hurts a bit. And so there are some negatives to our house being filled with natural light.

Anyway, back to taking it easy. Today Marah will try to install the plumbing for the new sink , reinstall the garbage disposal, etc, such that we have a functional kitchen again.

Oh, finally for those who want the really gory details ... here are two cell phone videos Marah took of the procedure. Evidently they had a closed-circuit TV in the waiting room. I love the juxtaposition with the toys to the left of the TV. I'm sure young children would love to watch these procedures live. Note that there's no sound from the procedure itself; merely Marah wincing in the waiting room.

Right Eye (done first):



Left Eye (done second):