There was an article in the local newspaper this morning about LASIK eye surgeries that have gone bad. It brought back bad memories of that fateful day in the summer of 2000.
I started wearing eye glasses when I was in the 5th grade. Well, I was supposed to that is. I could not see the blackboard in front of the room, so I went to the local optician for a checkup. I got glasses but was too self-conscious to wear them, so I stained to see the blackboard the rest of the year. I have always wondered if that was made my eye sight so bad. Every year for my annual checkup my eyes got worse. Finally when I was in college I tried contacts but I had a stigmatism so I could not see with soft contacts. I tried semi-permeable contacts and got severe eye lacerations, so that was the last time I wanted to put something in my eyes. I played football, basketball and baseball and seemed like I always had broken rims, which I often would tape to keep them together. I also did not like sweat pouring on my glasses and making it hard to see when playing sports. Finally when my glasses became too think to be comfortable, the technology improved to where the lens could be ultra thin, so wearing glasses was bearable.
When working in Saudi Arabia I made enough money to try goggles, which looked extremely bad but never broke when I got hit in the face playing basketball. In the land of freely flowing money, I had several friends fly to the capital of Riyadh to have RK done by one of the original Russian inventors, who worked for the king. When my eyes finally stopped changing yearly, we were living in the Raleigh NC area. I read in the loal newspaper that an eye surgeon who worked under this same Russian man lived in Greensboro and would be coming to Raleigh to start doing LASIK. I set up an appointment and at the last moment decided to have both eyes operated on. I was not really nervous as I trusted this doctor, for some odd reason.
On the morning of the surgery, I signed a release form that basically gave me no recourse if something when wrong. It was a bit scary on the morning of the surgery as I meant the other opthamologist, who programmed the laser. I wondered how he tested his calculations, since every person has unique laser settings, and he no one double checking his work! Once in the surgical room, even though I was sedated with Valium, I could smell my eyes burning as the laser sculpted my eye - that was not right! All of the sudden they stopped without saying anything and starting doing the same thing on the other eye. Then I could tell that they were doing things to my left eye they had not done to my right, so something had gone wrong. After they completely the surgery and had me wait with my wife for 30 minutes, the surgeon finally came in to check my eyes and told me what had happened. The flap on my right eye malfunctioned and they could not do LASIK on it, but completed it successfully on my left.
After arriving home and sleeping the rest of the day and night, I woke up to see a different world. My brain kept telling me - I could see and I couldn't see, all at the same time. My left eye went from 20-800 to 20-40 but my other eye with stigmatism was stuck back at 20-850. The biggest shock was that I had to wake 4-6 months before it could be corrected as the flap had to totally heal. I could not read a book, I could not watch TV, sunlight really bothered me, and I was night blind. I had to wear a black patch over my right eye in order to survive the daily grind. I found a way to work from home during this time, but the room had to be completely dark and I could not work longer than 45 minutes at a time as my eye got really tired. It the worst time of my life as it was depressing being a prisoner in my own house.
When 4 months passed I was able to have a second attempt to fix my right eye. It was definitely scary, but after 4 months of torture, I had to trust someone to fix my problem. The surgery was successful, but then I had a real problem of both eyes fluctuated but were normally 20-45 and my driver's license was expiring in a few weeks. In order to drive both eyes must be 20-40, so I was really wondering what would happen. I found if I got plenty of rest and did not strain my eyes in the morning and wore sunglasses when I went out, my eye sight was good. Somehow I got my driver's license by following these steps and within 2 years of my eye surgery my eyes were stable at 20-25 and my night blindness disappeared.
Thinking back, I don't think it was worth it, as I will be wearing glasses again as LASIK does not cure eye degeneration due to old age. I can only help friends become aware of LASIK problems as I cannot change the past!
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