Really? I Can See?

So, I had the surgery Monday afternoon. I was starting to get apprehensive, mostly due to inadvertently seeing the person ahead of me's eye being lasered on the TV in the waiting room. AIEEE. So I started getting scared. Not enough to back out of it, but enough to affect my breathing. I met with the doctor before heading into the big, round glass room where my eye would soon be on display to scare others. He allayed some of my concerns and calmed me down. I won't go into detail, but there was a point where I lost vision. This is normal and expected. The doctor warned me but it still freaked me out to the point where I stopped breathing. He pet my head and reminded me to breathe. Before you mock, just think about your vision going black before A LASER is going to cut your eye and thinking "That out of focus, blinking red light might be the last thing I ever see". The entire thing was over in 8 minutes for both eyes. Simply amazing. I sat up and was able to see without glasses or contacts for the first time in 22 years. It was like looking through a piece of gauze, but I could focus on things. I actually started crying, apologized to the doctor who said "Don't worry. Cry. It's good for the healing. You're the type of person I do this for, not like the guy before you (he had 20/60 - I was far worse than 20/400 which is seeing the big E - I just saw a blurry white blob). You aren't doing this for cosmetic reasons or for vanity. This is about quality of life for you." Which made me cry a bit more and tell him I wanted to give him a hug. He opened his arms and said "Dr. Wills loves hugs" and really hugged me. Did I mention he was awesome?

So, Jim picked me up and drove me home where I napped (doctor's orders) for a couple hours before beginning my regiment of two kinds of drops every 6 hours and rewetting drops as often as necessary. Oh, and I have to sleep in goggles for a week. Tres sexy. Katie came over and kept me company in my dark (eyes were still sensitive to light) apartment watching 24. I slept fairly well Monday night considering my eyes felt like they were full of sand.

I woke up yesterday morning and for the first time I can remember could see. I'm telling you, that is never, ever going to get old. I'll admit - it made me tear up again. It's completely indescribable if you have sight how amazing and unreal this is. So I went in for my post-op check up yesterday morning and my eyes are at 20/20. So that was great news. My left eye is a bit blurred today, but they said it's normal for the eyes to get better, worse, then better independent of each other over the next month. It is still absolutely amazing that I can see - I keep thinking I'm wearing contacts or that it's going to go away and I spend a lot of time just looking at things.