After my visit to the paperwork office, I was taken upstairs to the main area of the clinic to be measured again. Prior to the surgery, I had to wear my glasses instead of contacts for a week to let my corneas relax in case they were bent from wearing lenses. The measurement procedure was the same as during my consultation, although this time I had a different, yet still very informative, helpful, and personable optometrist working the machines and interpreting the results. The corneal topographies were essentially the same as before, and everything looked good to go. I asked her about doing both eyes the same day, and she asked a few questions about what my plans were for the next two to three weeks. Knowing that I can crank up the font size and bring down the screen resolution on my computer, where most of my reading and almost all of my writing gets done, she said it should be fine. I wanted to finalize with the surgeon, but we agreed that most likely I would do both eyes today.
After the digital examination, I was taken to another room where the optometrist performed a classic exam with the Snellen chart and a phoropter (you know, the thing that hangs in front of your face while the optometrists asks you whether you see more clearly with #1 or #2?). The optometrist seemed pleased that I didn't “overcorrect” in my perception of the charts, and explained how this test would help them to program the lasers for optimal results. She also explained the PRK procedure again, and told me that I could expect a 4-6 hour period of major discomfort sometime in the next two or three days, which would ideally happen tonight, after the surgery. She described it as a sensation of wearing torn contact lenses, but being unable to remove them because it wasn't in fact torn lenses but actual trauma to my corneas and corneal epithelium. Good times, but the sooner the discomfort, apparently the sooner the healing.
I spent another 15 or 20 minutes waiting in the exam room before the surgeon came in to discuss the two-eye option and answer any questions. As during the consultation, we finished up pretty quickly, and he told me about having seen a National Geographic special on Pompeii (everyone thinks I'm an archaeologist when I say “anthropologist”). After a few minutes of that, he popped up out of his chair and told me it was time to set up the laser, and that someone would come get me in a couple minutes for my surgery. Here we go!
An assistant came to get me in just a few moments and led me around the office into the surgery suite. In this room there were a whole bunch of large pieces of equipment, including what looked like air-conditioners and computer server racks. I was sat down on a reclined chair in between two of the big machines and dressed in a baby blue cap to hold my hair back. I was then told to lay back so the assistant could position me under the machine. Next was another round of drops in my eyes, anaesthetic I presume, followed by a patch over my right eye. The surgeon arrived, sat down at my head and began to work. A speculum clamped my eyelids open and he told me to keep looking at the small red light above me, inside a small-ish circle of white light. It was blurry. At this point I realized that one of the assistants was sitting down towards my feet, holding my hands down on my lap. I hope this is standard procedure and not some indication that I'm a twitchy, flinchy patient.
With my eye propped open, the surgeon began to apply a few more drops, and before I knew it, there was a blurry object in my line of sight. This was the electric-toothbrush-like instrument scraping away my epithelium. I couldn't feel it, but I could see it, and when he was done – in what felt like a few seconds – it seemed as if I was looking through a frosted window.
Next instruction was to keep looking at the red light. Laser time. The excimer laser makes a clicking noise as it fires, and some people say they can smell an odour. Apparently it's the gases used to make the laser work, and not corneal cells being vaporized. I didn't smell anything, but I did notice my vision becoming increasingly clear as the laser changed shape and position to reshape my cornea. Still, no sensation of pain or pressure or anything like it.
After 30-40 seconds of laser beams vaporizing bits of my cornea, I was done. The surgeon flushed my eye with a cold – and I mean cold – fluid, placed a clear bandage contact lens on my eye, and removed the speculum. At that point my eye slammed shut and refused to open for more than half a second, even when I tried to do it.
On to the next eye, with exactly the same procedure. The only difference was that I could feel the scraping, ever so slightly, as if something was scratching my eye. I also though I could feel the laser hitting my cornea, which I'm not sure is even physiologically possible. At any rate, the whole thing was over in 10 minutes or less. Before I knew it I was standing up again and being led into a darkened recovery room, where I kept my eyes closed and had a brief conversation with the guy who had been lasered before me.
After a short period in the recovery room, an assistant came in to explain (for the fourth time now, which I appreciated) how and how often to apply the three different types of medicated drops I was given. There was diclofenac as a painkiller, ofloxacin as an antibiotic, and lotemax as a steroid to moderate the healing process. All of those, a couple minutes apart, four times a day. Plus ibuprofen as an anti-inflammatory every four hours whether I felt pain or not. The assistant gave me a first round and told me to repeat the series before bed tonight. Then she stood me up and walked me out into the main waiting area where I sat until Nikita came to pick me up for our cab ride home.
Funny side note: I had been carrying my glasses with me from room to room throughout the day. During the surgery, the assistant placed them next to the monitor the surgeon would watch as he performed the procedure. In the recovery room, they were put up on a shelf above my chair. And for all I know, that's where the are today. I certainly wasn't thinking about them as I sat and waited to go home, and I've forgotten to ask about them during both of my follow up visits. It's not that I need them, obviously, but I kind of wanted to donate them to charity.
As I sat in the waiting room, some of the staff asked a couple times whether I had someone coming to pick me up (by the way, it's not Nikki's fault I sat and waited... the text I sent before the surgery didn't go through. Boo to AT&T, especially downtown, where they can't seem to manage a stable signal!). Eventually, one of them brought over some ibuprofen, water, and tissues, so I could wipe the steady stream of non-emotional tears off my face. It was involuntary, and non-stop. One of them, and I couldn't see who, said to me “don't worry, I was a big baby when I had mine done too!” I laughed, I think.
When Nik eventually got me out of there, we headed downstairs and tried to get a cab – at about 5pm on a Friday near Grand Central Station. Took a while, but eventually we sorted something out. I was effectively blind, keeping my eyes closed and wearing my stylish new sunglasses, despite the sun having set earlier. As we drove over to our side of town, I opened my eyes just a sliver ever so often and saw the bright lights of the city in clear, but a bit runny and watery, vision.
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