Slicing Up Eyeballs - Ah-ha-ha-ha!

So Belle gave me rather a nice B-day present, which I only just collected: Lasik eye-surgery. Singapore is a great place to get it. High quality. A lot cheaper than stateside. (Though still not cheap, of course.)

Goodbye glasses I've worn since 7th grade. I had the surgery on Friday. Took 20 minutes, felt uncomfortable but not painful. (It isn't nice to feel strong pressure on your eye for 20 seconds, combined with odd visual effects. In my case, a distinct sense that I was looking at tall, grey walls.) And I walked out, wearing Ray Bans and holding my wife's hand. Very light sensitive but already able to see basically ok. Saturday they said there seemed to be no problems. Very clean cut. I'm seeing lots of halos, which is normal - unfortunately sometimes normal for a couple months, assuming I am not one of the unlucky ones who gets to see them forever. (What does it look like? In Photoshop, turn the lightsource into a selection. Layer style. Outer glow. Opacity: 80. Noise: 70. Set to softer. Spread: 50. Size. 7 pixels. Add a bit of jitter. They are fading about a pixel a day.)

My myopia was pretty severe, and I'm approaching the age where you start to have trouble reading as well. So, without this surgery I was looking down the barrel of a pair of bifocals in a few years time. There isn't any way for surgery to correct both. So they tried something that sounds a bit weird but I guess is a familiar approach for them: my dominant eye is the left. I need to be able to read, so they made that my reading eye. It doesn't have perfect distance vision as a result of correcting for the close-in stuff. The right eye, by contrast, now has great distance vision but blurry reading vision. Supposedly my brain will learn to deal with this and I'll get close enough to the best of both. For now, it's not entirely satisfactory. But pretty good. If I decide I don't like it, I can get the left re-corrected to match the right and a pair of reading glasses to go with. But then I'll be one of those old men who has to put on his glasses to read stuff on the side of the package in the supermarket.

Maybe I could get a monacle. Or rather: two monacles. A left eye monacle for seeing perfectly in the distance. A right eye monacle for perfect reading. Wear them both on chains and use at need.

One weird thing is that I now can't really focus sharply on anything closer than about 6 inches. Which used to be practically the only range that was totally sharp. Not such a big deal. You aren't supposed to read stuff six inches away, but it's confusing to bring stuff close in and have it swim away.

Belle says my big green eyes are my best facial feature. I can't say that the competition is so stiff. But they are very large and green eyes, mine are. Long hidden and shrunken behind little lenses. (Contacts never worked for me.) Zoë has represented daddy's new handsomeness for your viewing pleasure.

The camera says they look more like this. That is: not green. But actually they are green in most lights.

Comments

[The Modesto Kid]

unfortunately sometimes normal for a couple months

So... you were granted the magic ability to see into people's souls and now you want to lose it?

Nice, good that it came off with no ill effects.

[md 20/400]

I hope you write an update on this. My eye doctor has been encouraging me to consider the same approach. One eye is much much worse than the other and my left eye is my reading eye. OTOH, I like being able to read the microprint on the new US bills.

[Russell Arben Fox]

Holy crap, John, you have my mother's eyes. What gives?

Glad the surgery seems to have gone well. As md 20/400 writes, keep us updated.

[cw]

I'm one of those guys who has to put on reading glasses to read the ingredients at the grocery store. Dr. said everybody gets there in their 40s. The eyes just don't focus close in anymore. There's no surgery to correct it. You just get cheaters from wallgreens. I have about 5 pair scattered around the house. No big deal.

[jholbo]

Thanks for comments. Tell you mom she can have her eyes back when I'm done with then, Russell. (Sheesh. She can listen to an audiobook or something.)

Update on my medical situation: slow improvement. Halos slowly receding. My eyes can't quite decide who's in charge yet. Get it together, brain! Specifically, when I close my left eye and look only through my right, everything gets a LOT clearer, even though its basically tolerable with both eyes open. Also, if I sit and read for 15 minutes, then get up and look into the distance, my left eye is very slow to figure out what's up. It takes a few minutes for my distant vision to get up to speed. Belle's mom says she knows someone who did the same time and it took quite a good while to adjust fully. So I'm waiting patiently.

[tzs]

John, I had LASIK done seven years ago. It took me about ten days to learn how to see again (the muscles around the eyes learning how to actually focus for certain distances.)

I've drifted back to being somewhat nearsighted (I used glasses to drive) and yeah, stuff like threading a needle is now a pain. But on the whole, definitely positive.

[Yan]

What a nice gift. Your girlie is so groovy.