Newest Raborns on the Block!: The Truth About my LASIK Experience

*DISCLAIMER, THIS POST IS NOT FOR THE FAINT OF HEART AND CONTAINS REAL LIFE UNEXAGGERATED TRUTH OF A SCARY SURGICAL PROCEDURE*

So I am finally in a place to share my lasik experience. It has taken me over a month to work up the courage to relive this life altering day. So here I go.... well my lasik experience was far from easy. I went into the surgery knowing it would be challenging for me. I have always had trouble touching my eye and putting in contact lenses so I knew an extremely invasive and scary surgery would be a challenge for me. And it was just that. I was as prepared as possible, I prayed very hard, and just held Cody's hand. If it hadn't been for Cody there I don't know if I could have done the surgery.

While waiting in the waiting room for 3 hours for the surgery I just knew I was waiting to be tortured. I felt like I was electively being apart of a real life criminal minds episode or something. After the second Valium pill, my heart was still palpitating out of my chest, I decide to take the plunge and walk into the surgery room. It was my turn, the last patient there, at 5:45pm. I walked into the surgery room and laid down in the chair as they ask my my name and birthday. I can't even remember what I tell them. I start to breathe faster and faster. Without realizing it I am panicking as the doctor without hesitation places the metal spectrum in my eye, forcing my eye way further open than it should EVER go. At this point everything is moving so fast and my eye is being poked prodded, and cut and I am at this point squeezing Cody's hand to death and hyperventilating. The nurse urgently tells me to calm and slow my breathing and it is taking everything in me to keep my head up and straight and my body on the chair because all I desperately wanted to do was be anyone else, being anywhere else but there right now being slowly tortured while i'm awake and fully aware. The Valium had absolute zero effect on me, I was too panicked. Against the doctors wishes I had two Valium pills before promising him I would not be out of it. At this point in the surgery, I bet he was hoping I was out of it a little bit (he later told me I took 5 years off of his life). So then my eye is forced open to the point of no return but the strange thing is I was still blinking. Well I mean I wasn't because it is physically impossible, but my eye muscles were still working so my muscles were moving like they were blinking and I fully felt like I was truly blinking. That was a nice perk because I was so worried about that part and having to hold my eye open for so long without it being 'lubricated'.

So next, the pressure of my eye was taken with this scary device and the worst part of all, a suction ring was coming towards my eye, and after watching all of the informational videos I knew what it meant and how awful it was going to be. It seemed like it was coming towards my eye in slow motion for like a minute as I could do nothing but cry inside because my eyes wouldn't produce tears. The suction ring went on my eye and the most insane pressure of my life. It felt like the doctor was standing on my eye and it was going to sink into its socket forever. I couldn't even get the words out that I was beyond freaking out. Then came the vision lost. Like they had warned me, my vision was 100% gone. All I could see was pitch black. All I could hear was the distant voice of the doctor saying to keep looking at the light. It was like the feeling of passing out and you are in a dark long lonely tunnel. I couldn't see the laser one bit but tried my hardest to look in that general direction and pray the good Lord gives me my vision back. And then came the cutting of the flap of my eye. You will never feel pain as you would someone cutting a microscopic layer off of the whole front of your eye, like peeling a layer off of a grape with a potato peeler. Even though my eye was numbed, I still felt the feeling and strange pain as you would imagine as he cut the flap off of the front of my eye. I will never forget that feeling. He then peeled the flap back and checked the pressure again. As my vision slowly starts to fade back I smell the smell. My eye was completely burning from the laser as it shaped my eye into the correct shape and fixed my astigmatism. The smell my eye made as it was being burned will be etched into my brain for the rest of my life. I will NEVER forget that smell. It was a horrible, horrible rotting flesh smell like someone being burned alive. That smell alone is what gave me the majority of the PTSD problems. Then the suction ring was released and the flap was replaced as he painted it in place over my eye. My vision was no longer blurry. The worst part was I was only half way done and they taped my finished eye closed and started with the other eye repeating the same process. It felt like a year had gone by with each eye but it was only 5-7 minutes.

The second eye was a little worse but went better surgically than my other eye. My left eye, the second one, was painfully pushed by the suction and the flap had a lot of trouble getting in the right place so I because extremely nauseous as he toggled with my entire vision field for a good minute. It was so gross and I was so panicked. And as my second eye was started I surrendered to the defeat of surgery and the lack of control I had over my eye and what was happening to me so I laid there like someone who is beaten after they are dead. I had internally given up and let the surgeon torture me. My eye could have been cut off at the root and placed on a plate beside me and I wouldn't have done a thing. I was defeated and so scared.

As my surgery was finished I thought the torture was over. Man was I mislead. That's the only part no one had prepared me for and I was not mentally ready for it's reality. As soon as I sat up my vision was perfect but foggy (as expected). And I was given sunglasses and whisked away to the post-op room. The other patients cracked jokes and happily left as I sat in shock. Poor Cody was really really bad. I hadn't prepared him for anything that would happen to me as he is extremely squeamish, more so than even I, so he was traumatized watching my surgery from the outside. I don't think I could have watched it from the outside. It was hard enough seeing the little bit I did. So it was like he went through it with me. He was white as a ghost. In post opp I was told surgery went perfectly and I was sent home to sleep the night away. So me mom and Cody went home and put me to bed (as sweet Cody made me my favorite meals for the next day). I had to put stinging eye drops in my eyes every 4 hours and had to wear eye guards to bed and avoid water for 3 days. My eyes stung like they were on fire and I fell asleep for a long time. I woke up every few hours in a mad panic, just covered in sweat crying. Every time I closed my eyes I was back in that chair feeling the torture being done on my eyes and I could vividly smell my eyes burning. The next morning I woke up and my vision was the clearest it had ever been in my entire life. It brought tears to my eyes. It had actually worked but for a price I didn't want to pay. Each blink, thousands of thousands of blinks a day, felt like a million eyelashes were stuck in my eye with no way of getting them out as I wasn't allowed to touch my eyes whatsoever. I was so uncomfortable and in pain and my depth perception was off and they were so so dry no matter what I did and I was a mess. On top of all of that I had to go to work the next day and was cleared to by the doctors but was in no condition to go (I went but really shouldn't have, I was in so much pain). So I spent the next day sleeping and praying and putting in my liquid fire eye drops. That night I looked in the mirror and screamed. There wasn't a millimeter of white in my eye, all I saw was blood. The whites of my eye were literally bleeding under the new flap. I was so scared but reassured by my doctor that it was completely normal.

So as I patently waited for my eyes to not feel like sand was stuck in them, days after day went by and nothing changed. I was scared to death. I was depressed and miserable that I wasn't healing like the other patients and the doctors couldn't explain the sensation in my eye. I 100% truly thought I was cursed to deal with that the rest of my life. Depressed was an understatement. I pitifully sat on the couch for the rest of that week unable to read, use my phone, take a shower, watch tv, or go outside. I am not going to lie, I cried a lot. Plus that felt good on my chronically dry eyes. The doctors couldn't explain why they were so dry even with the drops and I continually could't open and shut my eye with the dryness to the extent it was. I was so doomed thinking about my future having to deal with this and how in the world I could possibly cope. I really don't think I could. At this point I regretted getting the surgery and couldn't enjoy my new eyes at all since I was so miserable.

So I woke up on the one week mark and it was like the skies had opened and a rainbow appeared, my eyes felt....normal! I was so relieved I cried. I couldn't tell what had changed to make my eyes feel normal again. Then it hit me, the night before I had finished my eye drops as they had instructed. I had been having an allergic reaction to the eye drops and had no idea. The second I stopped using them I never had that painful terrible eyelash feeling in my eye and the dryness significantly improved. The doctors said no one has ever had an allergic reaction to the drops but I have to believe that I did because all of my symptoms disappeared 6 hours after I stopped my drops. That is not a coincidence. I was able to enjoy my eyes and really experience my beyond perfect vision as I had drive around to celebrate. I was in awe. Unfortunately my eyes still looked the same with the redness but I would take that any day over how they felt. It was really sad when I was in public the way people stared at me and the questions I got. I truly got a taste of what it was like to be truly 'different' and it stunk. I understand now to an extent of what individuals feel like that have physical abnormalities now and I feel for them and say I can relate to a level. As the days and weeks went on, my eyes felt better and better and the dryness eventually almost went away. I went to the eye doctor Friday morning and my eyes look perfect and the redness is almost gone. My eyes are 99% healed. And the best part....my vision is now 20/15. It is truly a God given miracle. I couldn't believe it as my eyes teared up in the doctors office. I never thought I would ever be ok, or the surgery would actually work. I now can say my surgery was 100% worth it. I just wish I really was given a realistic recovery talk. If I had known what I would face in the week following and ultimately being ok, I wouldn't have been so panicked or depressed. But now I know.

As for now and the future, I am just celebrating every day that my eyes are 20/15 because the surgery isn't guaranteed for forever and God may choose to bring my eyes back to the way they were but that's ok. I am just taking it one day at a time, enjoying what God has given my now. For the time being, I am loving how I look without glasses and without the hassle of keeping up with them, cleaning them, and worrying about them getting damaged. I also now only see one moon instead of 3, the way my astigmatism made me see. My life has opened up with opportunities now. I can play sports with a peace of mind, I can see when I go to the swimming pool and I never have to wear them again. Out of habit I still look for my glasses every now and then 😂. I am glad to lead this path for my sister and cousins and can be REAL advice for them and hope to not have scared you out of lasik. Thank you Woolfson Eye Institute and Dr. Woolfson for changing my life!