2020... Vision???

For my birthday, I did a bunch of things to treat myself and improve my quality of life, including getting myself a wireless AirPods Pro, getting a piano keyboard, a mattress topper, a very large TV, and maybe even a portable dance mirror! After years of saving money for both myself and my family, I decided to finally invest in myself, since 2020 and the Coronavirus Pandemic means I’m by myself 95% of the time. 

But, the king of them all is…

Drum roll….

…

….

Surprise! I got LASIK Eye Surgery!!!

How I Decided

So, from the first day I got glasses in 4th grade, I wished so hard deep down inside that one day I would not have to wear glasses anymore. Every time my vision got worse, I would be in denial about the worsening of my vision, and try to make through as long as possible without having to upgrade my glasses, because that would mean I would be more and more dependent on my glasses. (Kids -- don’t do this!! It’s better that you get the proper glasses so you can actually see well.) In middle school, I finally convinced Mak and Ayah to let me get contacts (mainly for sports), and I was so happy. Finally, I could run around without the glasses bouncing up and down, or insert glasses through my visor area when wearing a football helmet. Without contacts, there was no way I would have been any good at running hurdles in high school. 

Without contacts, this would have been impossible!!

Into college, I continued to wear contacts periodically, but mainly if I had to dress up or wanted to look good or cool (haha… whatever that means). Because I tend to have dryer eyes, I get bothered by having contacts in for too long. After 4-5 hours, my eyes start to get tired and my eyes start to change from ^_^ to o_o hehe. In graduate school, I started to wear contacts a lot more often, because I would put them in everytime I went to dance -- which, in the 2-3 years before the pandemic, was averaging 4-5x a week. Even then it was fine, and I was fine wearing contacts just for dance and dressing-up—and glasses casually otherwise. A lot of my friends even said they liked my look wearing glasses more, too! So if I was ineligible to undergo LASIK, I was actually quite fine with it.

In the end, I found that I always preferred my appearance without glasses, and it was something I always wanted and considered in the back of my mind. The final straw, amusingly, was that I started to grow out my hair long, but my preferred hairstyle wasn’t compatible with glasses.

My long hair 2020

Add that onto the money saved from the next 20-30 years of not buying glasses and contacts, I decided that I would at least get screened for LASIK and go with my gut feeling for it -- even if this was 100% a luxury I rarely afforded myself.

What is LASIK?

How Lasik works

LASIK is a procedure where the surgeon will cut an incision around your cornea (usually with an automated laser), so they can lift the surface and then use another laser to reshape the shape of your cornea. The shape of your cornea influences how light is focused in your eye, so it can be shaped such that everything is more in focus. As a parallel example, all glasses do is slightly change the direction of light to focus better the light hits the sensors in your eyes.

Getting Screened

Before even getting LASIK, the doctors have to figure out if it is safe to conduct the operation on you. To do this, they do an extensive examination of your eyes, including the normal vision tests, dilating your eyes, and having a “topography” image of your eyes (to show the surface of your cornea to see if it’s appropriate for surgery).

After you get your eyes dilated, you become very sensitive to light and it’s very hard to focus on reading smaller text! but -- you can look C O O L like this!!

Things that can disqualify you include: 

• a very thin cornea (it would be dangerous to reshape your cornea)

• evidence of degenerative disease (keratoconus), which can cause you to go blind if you don’t get a corneal transplant

• evidence of diabetes or an autoimmune disease (which can be diagnosed by looking at the blood vessels in the back of your eye)

Luckily I was in the clear!!

The Surgery 😱

I was first scheduled to have the surgery on Nov 2, the day after my birthday; but unfortunately, the machine technician was out for the day. It was rescheduled to 3 days later, on Thursday, Nov. 5. 

 

After an hour of mixups regarding getting some related prescription medicine eye drops, I was finally ready. They took me in, took 15 minutes to get another corneal topography image (just to double check everything was fine), and then had me dress up in a yellow thin surgical gown and cap (complete with ear covers!). They gave me a Valium (a drug) to help ensure that I was soothed and able to relax (because that makes the operation less likely to have complications).

My black goodie bag, water bottle, and the medicine container for my pill of Valium.

Transparent gown

My last hour wearing glasses???!?!

They had me walk a few rooms over to the surgical suite, where there were two machines (one for making the incision for the flap, one for reshaping the cornea), with a patient table that I would lie on that could rotate in and out of position underneath the operating machines. I was awake during the whole surgery!! The only anesthesia they used on me was what is called “topical anesthesia”, a fancy way of saying they used numbing eye drops. They gave me a toy football to hold onto during the surgery, just to keep my hands occupied. 

Once the anesthesia kicked in, they rotated me underneath the first machine: the femtosecond laser. The femtosecond laser makes a thin incision (aka a small cut) around the cornea, via a collection of very small vaporizations (~1 µm, which is 25000 times smaller than an inch!!). When under the machine, they close one eye, and have the other eye looking up, where you can see a green light. You keep your eye trying to focus on the green light, as the machine tube comes closer and closer to your eye (which they keep open using a tool). (Fortunately I am very relaxed here and just breathe slowly, and let it come to me). It then gets very close to your eyes, and creates a suction.

“Suction On.”

says a robotic female voice.

A few seconds later,

“Ready.”

You hear a sound (i forget what it sounds like), and then a sharp -- but not painful -- sensation on the edge of your eye for a few seconds. Sounds weird, right? It’s kind of like if you’re drawing on your skin with a pen -- it’s sharp, but not necessarily painful. Pain level was around a 1 -- my orthodontics procedures for my braces are definitely more painful >_< After 15 seconds or so, near the end of the lasering, the vision gets suddenly blurry, as if I suddenly got liquid dropped into my eye (this is expected). Once finished, they switched to the other eye, the same thing. Now that I knew the feeling of the incision, I braced a little more than the first time (even though it wasn’t painful, I didn’t like the sensation that much) - but it was smooth and good (and sudden blurry vision there too).

It is not advised to have Stormtroopers be in charge of the incising lasers (they'll always miss) (Source: DeviantArt lordofcombine)

Once done, they had me get up and switch to the other machine right beside it, where they would do the reshaping process. All throughout, they kept “watering” my eyes with regular eye drops, just to make sure it wasn’t too dry. On this side, they kept one eye open (and taped shut the other again). The most interesting part happened here, that I didn’t really know would happen. The surgeon took had a little tool, and used it to test (or perturb? not sure) the edges of the flap. Then he used it to gently prod the side of the eye that had most of the incision done, and once it reacted in the way he wanted, he basically peeled back the flap open -- like you would peel back the opening of the protective cover for yogurt or one of those instant cup ramens. It didn’t hurt! It was just very... ….. … interesting. 

Analogous "peeling" action

Once this happened, everything turned very blurry, like everything out of focus. Again the machine had a green light that I would stare into. This time, there was no suctioning action (not practical because the corneal flap is open), but there is eye-tracking technology that can adjust the direction and angle of the “excising” laser to be used for reshaping the cornea. With the flap open, the surgeon initiated the excising laser, and it was just this whole light show of green and red. It only took maybe 15 seconds (? I lost track of time, I’m not so sure), and I had to try so hard to stay focused on the light in the center. This part didn’t have any sharp or painful sensation, I just clenched my jaw a little more than usual as I tried to focus on the center light -- although at the same time I was trying to follow the surgeon’s instructions on just relaxing my face (and thereby, my eye muscles). The most distinctive thing is that it smelled like the same smell that you smell at the dentist’s office when you get a filling and/or get your teeth reshaped. Basically, the excising laser was used to ablate (aka use very focused heat to remove and shape) the cornea in the desired shape, so it makes sense that the smell was like that. Once it was finished, the surgeon gently placed the peeled back corneal flap into place, and made sure that it fit back as snug as possible. The same thing was done to the other eye. 

Then, it was done. 

They had me get up, and the first thing I noticed -- I could read the clock (it was analog). Wow. I walked outside, and everything felt pretty bright, but -- wow. I could see things?? Without glasses? It wasn’t all that novel because I’ve worn contacts before, but without them in it was like having a newfound freedom.

They gave me a packet with the prescription eyedrops, protective eye wear for sleeping, and sunglasses. And sent me off!

My ascent out of the matrix has begun

 

Or am I on my way to becoming Cell from DBZ??

      

The Aftermath

I was okay for 10 minutes after the surgery, and marveling at this Whole New World™ around me. But then the numbing drops began to wear off, and my eyes started to produce A LOT of tears (I think there must have been a lot of ninjas following me and cutting onions or something).

RT if you've ever been victimized by stealthy ninjas cutting onions around you

It felt like there was something very dry in the back of my eyes, as if I slept with my contacts in my eyes and they got lost in the back. These symptoms are quite normal and expected, so they usually advise you to go back home and just sleep it off for the next 4-5 hours. So that’s what I did --- closed all of my blinds and just knocked out. 

Once I awoke 4 hours later, my eyes still felt miserable (a little less so), so I just forced myself to go back to sleep for awhile longer. Some of my friends mentioned that they were really really sensitive to light at first, so I tried to keep my light use to a minimum, and mainly just kept lights on in adjacent rooms on (like, I would keep my bathroom door open with the light on, when I was in the kitchen getting out food with the lights off).

(Had to wear my sunglasses at night... Amin can relate??)

Once I used the prescription eye drops though -- that helped so much!!! Suddenly my eyes were more relaxed and I could actually do things normally (while being cautious about light exposure). I called Mak and Ayah to let them know how I was doing ( ^_^ ) and also another friend I hadn’t talked to for awhile. 

First post-op selfie

In the days since, I’ve been so fortunate in the healing process, I believe. One of my friends said the she had to sit in a dark room for almost a week and it was so miserable for her during that time -- to the point where she offered to bring me food a couple days after because she wanted to ease the struggle for me (I gracefully accepted :D although I let her know how smoothly things have gone). As for me, the next day my “biggest” complaint would just have been that my eyes were continuously dry, so I have to consistently put in artificial tears and the prescription eye drops every few hours. Still, I tried to be cautious, and tried not to use screens and to use sunglasses when going outside, but overall it’s been so smooth!! Each day, the level of dryness lessens a bit more and it’s a bit more comfortable, especially if I keep “watering” my eyes. In the past few days, I had the epiphany that when my eyes felt “tired” after staying up late, or after wearing contacts for so long -- it was probably just because my eyes were getting dry. Had I known that, maybe I would have used eye drops more often!!! (Pro tip to everyone else!!!)

Still, even with the fortunate progression of healing (alhamdullilah!) there are still things I need to be cautious about. Mainly, most of the complications henceforth pertain to the healing of the flap incision. In the first 24 hours, they advise wearing the provided protective goggles to protect anything entering the eye -- because it can lead to a very undesired eye infection and mess up a lot of things. This also includes not showering in the first 24 hours. Most of the healing of the incision happens in the first week, so they advise sleeping in protective goggles for that time period and not getting any water in your eyes. I personally use the protective goggles in the shower, and avoid getting water on my face at all while in the shower. I wash my face separately and very, very carefully. No swimming is permitted within the first 2-3 weeks, although I probably will just forego swimming until the spring, and avoid getting water in my eyes for this 2 week period. Rubbing the eyes is also a no-no, because it can dislodge the flap, even after it has mainly healed in the first week. Basically, they advise to not rub your eyes for 2-3 months (this is really hard!!). And, whenever doing any risky activity (sports, work related, etc) where there is a possibility of anything hitting your eye, they strongly advise wearing protective gear for the next year (although you should always wear protective gear for a lot of those activities anyway). 

The dry eyes are a result of nerves being cut during the incision (so your eyes don’t get the signal to produce more tears when your eyes are dry), so I will need to use eye drops for the next 3-4 months as they regenerate.

In Closing…

What an experience!!! I think I really needed some positive change and transformation in my life after the rollercoaster ride of 2020, and this definitely was a significant part of it. Everyday feels like I’m living a new life, and it’s all still so surreal. Although my eyes constantly feel “tired” (aka dry), I am so grateful for this opportunity and privilege for this luxury. I’ll continue to be careful about taking care of my eyes during the post-operative period (better to be safe than sorry, especially with your eyes!!!), and cherishing this new found dimension of life. Ironically, I may still wear glasses every so often; the blue light filters on my previous glasses really helped with not fatiguing my eyes so much, and plus some glasses are still fashionable :^) but this time, it’ll be a choice and not a necessity :) Thankful to God that I could actually fulfill one of my deepest childhood wishes :)

I hope this fills you in on the experience, especially if you’re considering LASIK (or cataract surgery, even) in the future  👀 👀. 

Me with my surgeon, Dr. Bartlett (UCLA)