January 23, 2007

Announcing my candidacy....for Lasik!

So I met with a small exploratory committee yesterday to appraise my candidacy for LASIK surgery. My committee consisted of opthamologist, her assistant, and a receptionist. My driver dropped me off at the committee's fancy high rise building and in I went. I filled out paperwork and was shown a video explaining the surgery and why or why not I may or may not be a good candidate.

I was then ushered by the assistant into a room with three vision testing contractions. I had to look into the lenses of one and focus on a tiny picture of a desert road with a hot air balloon at the end. As your eyes look at the balloon, the machine can assess how much it needs to adjust to make the picture clear for your eyes. This tells the machine your prescription. Neat! I also had to do the traditional vision test (better one, or two? Three or four?) but not for as long as you usually do. The balloon test is way more fun.

Then I had to move to another machine, and rest my chin on the thingy and look through the lenses. This one had a yellow and black striped background, like something you would find in a funhouse. This machine took pictures of my cornea. The assistant studied my pictures and told me I met two of the three criteria they look for in a "good candidate." The one criteria that was missing was the shape of my cornea. Instead of round, it is more concave, like a football. It is flatter than they would like it to be. But, apparently, I have a very thick corneas, tons of tissue, enough to "share with friends." So if somebody needs some cornea tissue, holla!

The assistant went and conferred with the opthamologist for a while and then came back with the exploratory committee finding: sometime between the first room and the meeting between the two of them, they decided I was an excellent candidate. I'm also a good candidate because I have 13 years of experience sticking things in my eye and not flinching. I think my eyes are actually numb from all the years of contacts. All the drops they kept putting in were supposed to "sting" but they ain't hurt at all!

They gave me those evil drops that dilate your pupils and gave me some other exams. Interesting fact: they also makes drops that un-dilate your pupils......but you have to ask. Multiple times. I guess they are super-expensive so they don't tell you that they exist, cause they don't want to give them to you. They don't have an immediate effect but they cut the time in half.

I set up my appointment for the surgery and called my driver. He whisked me away to rest my eyes before going to work.

My surgery is on February 2nd. I'll either come out seeing great, or seeing nothing. They say my vision will be corrected to 20/20. We'll see about that!

5 comments:

Carol Ann said...

Holy Mackerel, that's fast! Next week! I'm going to send some mental messages for your surgeon to have a steady hand with them there lasers.

Speaking of that pupil-dilating stuff...This one time right after I was diagnosed with MS and had my 3rd case of Optic Neuritis I went to see an Opthamologist(sp?) and he gave me some of those drops then proceeded to totally harass me about basically every healthcare choice I'd made thus far and generally act like a dick.

So I through a massive hissy fit and tore ass out of there, and DROVE HOME with gooey eyes. Not my best decision, granted, but I'm just saying...it's possible to drive with that stuff.

Hench said...

I can't belive he reamed you for your past medical choice. F' him doode.

I too have driven with huge pupes...I tried to sit in the waiting room for a while to let them undilate, but it was too boring. So I stuck in my contacts and drove on home. I was starving and wanted to stop and get food but I couldn't read so I was forced to go the one place where everybody has the menu memorized: McDonald's!

Carol Ann said...

Heh. That reminds me of that old Sinbad (yes, I said Sinbad!) routine about standing behind the indecisive guy at McDonald's.

"Let me seeeeee...Do they haaaavvve...."

"Double Cheeseburger Mother Fucker!! You know what they have at MacDonald's!!"

I'm not sure if he actually said the full MF, or if I'm revising in my mind to suit my truck-driver sensibilities....

Leslie said...

I'm voting for Hench's Corneas. My eyes are okay now, but a few more years of reading these damn ppt files, I may need something extra.

Hench said...

Ha, that is why I went to McDonalds! I remembered his routine and that I sadly do have the menu memorized. I love Sinbad.....long live "House Guest"! Best movie ever, after Gleaming the Cube.