Part II: The surgery
No one ever tells the gory details. They walk in, and walk out, and the world is a better place. There was a little more gray area for me, all in all it took about seven minutes, but felt like much longer.
This is a little long, but I think it it pretty funny and a good read. Of course, I wrote it, so of course I think it is. =)
I walk back to the operating room with Grumpy Guy. I had seen Grumpy guy walk by my waiting room numerous times, and he finally came to retrieve me. I place my stuff, consisting of purse, Blackberry, and a folder, on a stand with a TV, and a nurse (whose name I cant remember) has me lay down on a reclining light blue-grey surgery chair. It's a light blue-gray that looks like the color is just a little wrong. It's a color you only see in operating rooms. She starts small conversation. "How long have you been in Atlanta? Do you like it? Where are you from? I hav two kids. I've lived here for 21 years..."
Meanwhile, it hits me. I am in an operating room. I am about to have surgery. I am about to have someone slice my eyes open. Oh, God! The panic starts to well up as Nurse cleanses my eyes with a swab, starting at the lids and working her way out.
What am I doing? I want out! Breathe, breathe, don't panic. You're tough! You've always been tough! Breathe...
From most of this point on, I keep my eyes closed as much as possible. She then sticks a paper hoop to my chin. "To help you breathe," she says. Huh? Next, she explains, is the sterile barrier. Now I know figure out what the thing on my chin is for. The sterile barrier is a stick-on mask that covers your eyes. It sticks to your eyebrows, cheekbones, and the bridge of your nose and drapes over your nose and mouth. It's been developed by some bastards at the superglue company as I come to discover later. The paper hoop creates a channel below my mouth to allow me to breathe.
Nurse informs me,"The doctor is scrubbing up. He'll be in momentarily. Open your eyes for some drops." She administers a series of cold and harsh drops to numb my eyes, and then swabs my eyelids with more topical anesthetic. I can see the swab, and it looks like it should hurt, but my eyes have been numbed and I don't feel a thing. She covers my left eye but leaves the right eye uncovered.
The doctor arrives and suddenly Doc, Nurse, and Grumpy are reading off all sorts of numbers very quickly. This must be the laser checks and readouts, but Doc is replying almost before he's heard the numbers. Is he even listening?!?
I peek a little and I am under the laser. It is very close to my face. There is a blinking red and green light directly over my center of vision, and three lights spaced evenly around this area. The entire apparatus is beige and blocky. I close my eyes again, willing this to be over.
Finally, the pre-flight checklist is completed and Doc starts explaining what he's doing as he goes through. First comes the Alien Torture Device. It's real name is the lid speculum, but it reminds me of an alien movie I saw once where this guy was abducted and they performed experiments on his eyes with something that looked suspiciously similar. The movie really freaked me out as a kid and I can't stop my brain from drawing the similarities. He takes Alien Torture Device and pries my unwilling eyelid open with it. It's tight and I feel alot of pressure, but no pain. He then places the suction ring on my eye, or tries to, but it doesn't quite work. I can see him moving it on my eye, and it looks surpisingly frail and delicate. I am surprised I can discern something so close to my eye.
"Hold on, Allison. I am going to make this more comfortable on you. I know it must feel like I have my shoe on the side of your face," Doc says. Shoe on the side of my face? Huh? Aw, fuck. Something has gone wrong already! I want to cry but can't blink my eye to do it. Aaaahhhh! I can't see him and I can't see what he is doing. The sense of helplessness and dread is almost overbearing.
He removes the suction ring and lid speculum. "Allison's eyelids must have been doing some weight lifting," he jokes. Yeah, real funny guy. He begins to insert a smaller Alien Torture Device. I am starting to panic again, and I think they can tell.
"This is kind of like Groundhog Day. Have you ever seen Ground Hog Day, Allison?"
"..uh-huh.." I reply in something that sounds more to me like a wimper than a real response.
"It's been a long time since I've seen a comedy. I recently saw Fahrenheit 911 and [some other movie] which, while very informative, are quite lacking in the comedy department." Damn Proper British Accent. But, hey, he saw Fahrenheit, so I have to respect him a little.
The lid speculum is in again and he again places the frail suction ring to my eye. I hear a quick buzzing near my eye. What in the world is that? It sounds like he is shaving my eyelashes! Why is he shaving my eyelashes?
"Suction!" he commands Nurse, and suddenly I feel a very uncomfortable pressure on my eye and my vision darkens until I can no longer see. This thing puts so much pressure on the surface of your eye that it temporarily blinds you. That is a blessing in disguise, as you will see momentarily.
Oh, god! I know what's next....it's...it's..."You will hear a slight buzzing sound," Doc warns. IT'S THE MICROKERATOME!!!
See, alot of people think you just walk in and they zap a laser in your eye and voila! It's done. But LASIK involves creating a protective flap of corneal tissue. The laser is applied under the flap, and then the flap is put back in place. It heals itself very quickly, and is much less painful and vision is restored more quickly than with a laser administered to the surface of the cornea.
I know what the microkeratome is, and I know what it does. It is a quite harmless looking device, but harmless it is not. It contains tiny gears, which electronically pushes a razor through your eye to create a corneal flap, then pulls the razor back out.
Even though he warned me about the buzzing, I jerked back as soon as I heard it. I wanted nothing more than to get out of that chair. I was absolutely more terrified than I had ever been. Maybe it's just because it's my eyes, but I really freaked. I was experiencing a total "Fight or Flight" reaction and it was taking every ounce of strength and logic to keep from running out of the operating room, or decking the doctor. Running is more my style, and strangely, I think, "How odd would it be to see someone running down the hallway of an office building with this mask on their face and a metallic device suctioned to their eyeball?"
Thankfully it's over quickly. The buzzing stops and I can suddenly see again. Doc removes the Microkeratome and suction ring, and I can see these tiny, flimsy forceps lift the corneal flap, lower it, and lift it again. It is very strange. Doc explains that, "When I lift the flap, it will look a bit like you are seeing things through a frosted bathroom window." Sure enough, flap down, normal. Flap up, frosted bathroom window.
With frosted bathroom window, Doc tells me to look at the red light, which is now big, red, and very blurry now that my cornea has been tossed out of the way. I try to look anyway and "ZAP ZAP ZAP ZAP ZAP ZAP ZAP!" Huh! Funky! I can see something that corresponds to the zaps and it is six small points of light, but I can't tell where it is coming from, what direction. I am having a very hard time following the red light. It seems to be just above my center of vision, no matter how hard I try to look directly at it. The zapping stops. "Watch the red light, Allison. The eye has a tendency to wander," he says knowingly. I refocus, and the zapping recommences, with Doc reiterating, "Keep your eye on the red light, Allison. That's it. Keep watching the red light."
"Cylinder!" yells Grumpy. More zapping. All in all, there was maybe a max of 30 seconds of zapping, then it was done.
I can see liquid on my eye, and then the flap comes down again with those little forceps. Something that looks incedibly like the smallest, cutest window washer you have ever seen is drawn repeatedly over my eye, from the top down. A really odd sensation, that is.
Waves of relief pass over, but the sensation is quickly replaced again by panic and dread. I still have one eye left!
"I could just get up and leave. I'll just wear funny glasses for the rest of my life. Depth perception is overrated anyway! Oh, God! I don't want to do this again. Oh, God!"
The cover over my left eye is removed. "More drops to numb your eye, Allison," explains Nurse as I am assaulted with more harsh, cold, unexpected anesthetic. I catch a brief glimpse of Doc and am surprised by where I see him. His voice sounded like it was coming from behind my head, but I can see him directly over me, looking down through the beige block, centered directly over the red light. I see his face and the silly blue hair cap that is part of his surgical garb.
For some reason, seeing him, albeit in an unexpected location, calms me, and at this point, I start taking slow, deep, calming breaths. Suck it up! Relax!
"Don't forget to breathe," reminds Nurse. Well, what the heck does it sound like I am doing?!? Quickly the Alien Torture Device is placed in my eye, followed by the quick buzz. I realize now that he is testing the Microkeratome before using it, not shaving my eyelashes. I almost laugh at my stupidity.
Almost, but not quite.
The suction ring is placed and I hear "Suction!" commanded from Doc once more. Ow! This hurts alot more this time! As my vision darkens, I protest,"Uh, this is much more uncomfortable this time."
"That's just your brain responding. It knows what is coming now." I don't believe him and can only hope that I can't feel the microkeratome slicing my cornea with this reduced state of anesthesia.
Again, "Now Allison, you'll hear that buzzing sound again." Again, panic, dread, and an image of myself running out of the office with a sci-fi looking thing hanging out of my eyeball.
The flap has been created and light is restored once more. "Keep your eye on the red light this time, Allison. You have to keep looking at it. That's why I had to stop before."
Oh, you actually stopped the procedure before? Oh, man, I hope I didn't just screw this whole thing up! What if I was looking just slightly off, and the laser lased in the wrong spot? No time to dwell on that, though, just don't screw up this one.
Again I had trouble, though. I could not keep focused on the light, and Doc kept up the mantra, "Look at the red light, keep looking at the red light." ZAP ZAP ZAP ZAP ZAP ZAP ZAP ZAP ZAP!
"Cylinder!" ZAP ZAP ZAP ZAP ZAP ZAP ZAP!
The saline and windshield washer came and went. The recliner bed moves and more drops are administered to tighly shut eyes. I tried to open them, but they kept squirting drops in. The doctor may have said something in parting, but I don't remember. He was suddenly no longer there. Nurse comes and tells me the worst part is here: removing the sterile barrier, and she is almost right. It is certainly more painful, because those guys at the Superglue comany made good and sure that it stays in place, lest the sterile barrier be broken! God forbid! "Don't scrunch your eyes!" the nurse warns, and yanks off an eyebrow. "Don't scrunch!" and there goes the other eyebrow. along with most of the top layers of sensitive skin on my face and below my eyes. "Don't worry, your eyebrows will grow back," she tells me.
"You can open your eyes now and sit up," explains the nurse. I hear these words, but I do not process them. I am still trying to determine if my face was bleeding from the tape, and if I would need to worry about getting my eyebrows waxed again for a very long time.
"I wonder how much an eyebrow pencil costs," I think,"so I can draw fake ones on my forehead. Those old ladies with drawn in eyebrows always look so funny! I wonder why they do that...."
"Uh, You can open your eyes now and sit up," she says again, breaking my reverie,"and unclench your hands." I open two very blurred, foggy eyes, and can discern eight very white fingers and two very white thumbs in my lap. I must have been clenching my fingers together the whole time. I get up and gather my belongings as blood returns to my deadened fingers and grey nails. As I am escorted to the post-op room, I draw my hand to my forehead and cheeks and am delighted to discover I still have eyebrows and skin. The lights are dimmed in the post-op room.
The doc comes in, again in those strangely humorous blue scrubs, and hands me my post-op kit. Or maybe it was already in the room waiting for me. Everything is grey and foggy and fuzzy, but despite this, I can already tell my vision is better. Doc explains some stuff that passes in one ear and right out the other. Something about keeping my eyes closed as mich as possible, filling prescriptions, wearing provided "rock-star" sunglasses, and who knows what other beneficial information that I was too in shock to take note of. I again gather my stuff and walk out to the receptionist. I am supposed to have a ride, but I was planning to call Corwin after surgery. I am supposed to hand my chart to the receptionist, but forget to as I am fumbling with my Blackberry, trying to turn it on. I cant see the buttons very clearly, and can't remember how to turn it on. The receptionist has to ask for the chart, and I feel very stupid.
And I still can't turn on the phone. Oh, yeah, hit the Backlight button three times. I find Corwin's phone entry out more memory and feel than sight and call him to come pick me up.
I sit in the reception area and wait, while almost having to fight back tears. I feel very traumatized, very NOT tough, very emotionally drained. Corwin arrives in no time and escorts me out, thoughfully putting his hand up to show me the closed side of the glass doubledoors on the way out. Just in time too, as I almost smacked headlong into it. That could potentially have been the shortest laser correction in history as I am sure the impact would have dislodged my now very fragile corneas. What genious thought it was a good idea to put glass doors to the surgical suite for outpatient eye surgery?
But, alas, the adventure is over. I go home, get prescribed drugs, and sleep better than I had in weeks.
This is a little long, but I think it it pretty funny and a good read. Of course, I wrote it, so of course I think it is. =)
I walk back to the operating room with Grumpy Guy. I had seen Grumpy guy walk by my waiting room numerous times, and he finally came to retrieve me. I place my stuff, consisting of purse, Blackberry, and a folder, on a stand with a TV, and a nurse (whose name I cant remember) has me lay down on a reclining light blue-grey surgery chair. It's a light blue-gray that looks like the color is just a little wrong. It's a color you only see in operating rooms. She starts small conversation. "How long have you been in Atlanta? Do you like it? Where are you from? I hav two kids. I've lived here for 21 years..."
Meanwhile, it hits me. I am in an operating room. I am about to have surgery. I am about to have someone slice my eyes open. Oh, God! The panic starts to well up as Nurse cleanses my eyes with a swab, starting at the lids and working her way out.
What am I doing? I want out! Breathe, breathe, don't panic. You're tough! You've always been tough! Breathe...
From most of this point on, I keep my eyes closed as much as possible. She then sticks a paper hoop to my chin. "To help you breathe," she says. Huh? Next, she explains, is the sterile barrier. Now I know figure out what the thing on my chin is for. The sterile barrier is a stick-on mask that covers your eyes. It sticks to your eyebrows, cheekbones, and the bridge of your nose and drapes over your nose and mouth. It's been developed by some bastards at the superglue company as I come to discover later. The paper hoop creates a channel below my mouth to allow me to breathe.
Nurse informs me,"The doctor is scrubbing up. He'll be in momentarily. Open your eyes for some drops." She administers a series of cold and harsh drops to numb my eyes, and then swabs my eyelids with more topical anesthetic. I can see the swab, and it looks like it should hurt, but my eyes have been numbed and I don't feel a thing. She covers my left eye but leaves the right eye uncovered.
The doctor arrives and suddenly Doc, Nurse, and Grumpy are reading off all sorts of numbers very quickly. This must be the laser checks and readouts, but Doc is replying almost before he's heard the numbers. Is he even listening?!?
I peek a little and I am under the laser. It is very close to my face. There is a blinking red and green light directly over my center of vision, and three lights spaced evenly around this area. The entire apparatus is beige and blocky. I close my eyes again, willing this to be over.
Finally, the pre-flight checklist is completed and Doc starts explaining what he's doing as he goes through. First comes the Alien Torture Device. It's real name is the lid speculum, but it reminds me of an alien movie I saw once where this guy was abducted and they performed experiments on his eyes with something that looked suspiciously similar. The movie really freaked me out as a kid and I can't stop my brain from drawing the similarities. He takes Alien Torture Device and pries my unwilling eyelid open with it. It's tight and I feel alot of pressure, but no pain. He then places the suction ring on my eye, or tries to, but it doesn't quite work. I can see him moving it on my eye, and it looks surpisingly frail and delicate. I am surprised I can discern something so close to my eye.
"Hold on, Allison. I am going to make this more comfortable on you. I know it must feel like I have my shoe on the side of your face," Doc says. Shoe on the side of my face? Huh? Aw, fuck. Something has gone wrong already! I want to cry but can't blink my eye to do it. Aaaahhhh! I can't see him and I can't see what he is doing. The sense of helplessness and dread is almost overbearing.
He removes the suction ring and lid speculum. "Allison's eyelids must have been doing some weight lifting," he jokes. Yeah, real funny guy. He begins to insert a smaller Alien Torture Device. I am starting to panic again, and I think they can tell.
"This is kind of like Groundhog Day. Have you ever seen Ground Hog Day, Allison?"
"..uh-huh.." I reply in something that sounds more to me like a wimper than a real response.
"It's been a long time since I've seen a comedy. I recently saw Fahrenheit 911 and [some other movie] which, while very informative, are quite lacking in the comedy department." Damn Proper British Accent. But, hey, he saw Fahrenheit, so I have to respect him a little.
The lid speculum is in again and he again places the frail suction ring to my eye. I hear a quick buzzing near my eye. What in the world is that? It sounds like he is shaving my eyelashes! Why is he shaving my eyelashes?
"Suction!" he commands Nurse, and suddenly I feel a very uncomfortable pressure on my eye and my vision darkens until I can no longer see. This thing puts so much pressure on the surface of your eye that it temporarily blinds you. That is a blessing in disguise, as you will see momentarily.
Oh, god! I know what's next....it's...it's..."You will hear a slight buzzing sound," Doc warns. IT'S THE MICROKERATOME!!!
See, alot of people think you just walk in and they zap a laser in your eye and voila! It's done. But LASIK involves creating a protective flap of corneal tissue. The laser is applied under the flap, and then the flap is put back in place. It heals itself very quickly, and is much less painful and vision is restored more quickly than with a laser administered to the surface of the cornea.
I know what the microkeratome is, and I know what it does. It is a quite harmless looking device, but harmless it is not. It contains tiny gears, which electronically pushes a razor through your eye to create a corneal flap, then pulls the razor back out.
Even though he warned me about the buzzing, I jerked back as soon as I heard it. I wanted nothing more than to get out of that chair. I was absolutely more terrified than I had ever been. Maybe it's just because it's my eyes, but I really freaked. I was experiencing a total "Fight or Flight" reaction and it was taking every ounce of strength and logic to keep from running out of the operating room, or decking the doctor. Running is more my style, and strangely, I think, "How odd would it be to see someone running down the hallway of an office building with this mask on their face and a metallic device suctioned to their eyeball?"
Thankfully it's over quickly. The buzzing stops and I can suddenly see again. Doc removes the Microkeratome and suction ring, and I can see these tiny, flimsy forceps lift the corneal flap, lower it, and lift it again. It is very strange. Doc explains that, "When I lift the flap, it will look a bit like you are seeing things through a frosted bathroom window." Sure enough, flap down, normal. Flap up, frosted bathroom window.
With frosted bathroom window, Doc tells me to look at the red light, which is now big, red, and very blurry now that my cornea has been tossed out of the way. I try to look anyway and "ZAP ZAP ZAP ZAP ZAP ZAP ZAP!" Huh! Funky! I can see something that corresponds to the zaps and it is six small points of light, but I can't tell where it is coming from, what direction. I am having a very hard time following the red light. It seems to be just above my center of vision, no matter how hard I try to look directly at it. The zapping stops. "Watch the red light, Allison. The eye has a tendency to wander," he says knowingly. I refocus, and the zapping recommences, with Doc reiterating, "Keep your eye on the red light, Allison. That's it. Keep watching the red light."
"Cylinder!" yells Grumpy. More zapping. All in all, there was maybe a max of 30 seconds of zapping, then it was done.
I can see liquid on my eye, and then the flap comes down again with those little forceps. Something that looks incedibly like the smallest, cutest window washer you have ever seen is drawn repeatedly over my eye, from the top down. A really odd sensation, that is.
Waves of relief pass over, but the sensation is quickly replaced again by panic and dread. I still have one eye left!
"I could just get up and leave. I'll just wear funny glasses for the rest of my life. Depth perception is overrated anyway! Oh, God! I don't want to do this again. Oh, God!"
The cover over my left eye is removed. "More drops to numb your eye, Allison," explains Nurse as I am assaulted with more harsh, cold, unexpected anesthetic. I catch a brief glimpse of Doc and am surprised by where I see him. His voice sounded like it was coming from behind my head, but I can see him directly over me, looking down through the beige block, centered directly over the red light. I see his face and the silly blue hair cap that is part of his surgical garb.
For some reason, seeing him, albeit in an unexpected location, calms me, and at this point, I start taking slow, deep, calming breaths. Suck it up! Relax!
"Don't forget to breathe," reminds Nurse. Well, what the heck does it sound like I am doing?!? Quickly the Alien Torture Device is placed in my eye, followed by the quick buzz. I realize now that he is testing the Microkeratome before using it, not shaving my eyelashes. I almost laugh at my stupidity.
Almost, but not quite.
The suction ring is placed and I hear "Suction!" commanded from Doc once more. Ow! This hurts alot more this time! As my vision darkens, I protest,"Uh, this is much more uncomfortable this time."
"That's just your brain responding. It knows what is coming now." I don't believe him and can only hope that I can't feel the microkeratome slicing my cornea with this reduced state of anesthesia.
Again, "Now Allison, you'll hear that buzzing sound again." Again, panic, dread, and an image of myself running out of the office with a sci-fi looking thing hanging out of my eyeball.
The flap has been created and light is restored once more. "Keep your eye on the red light this time, Allison. You have to keep looking at it. That's why I had to stop before."
Oh, you actually stopped the procedure before? Oh, man, I hope I didn't just screw this whole thing up! What if I was looking just slightly off, and the laser lased in the wrong spot? No time to dwell on that, though, just don't screw up this one.
Again I had trouble, though. I could not keep focused on the light, and Doc kept up the mantra, "Look at the red light, keep looking at the red light." ZAP ZAP ZAP ZAP ZAP ZAP ZAP ZAP ZAP!
"Cylinder!" ZAP ZAP ZAP ZAP ZAP ZAP ZAP!
The saline and windshield washer came and went. The recliner bed moves and more drops are administered to tighly shut eyes. I tried to open them, but they kept squirting drops in. The doctor may have said something in parting, but I don't remember. He was suddenly no longer there. Nurse comes and tells me the worst part is here: removing the sterile barrier, and she is almost right. It is certainly more painful, because those guys at the Superglue comany made good and sure that it stays in place, lest the sterile barrier be broken! God forbid! "Don't scrunch your eyes!" the nurse warns, and yanks off an eyebrow. "Don't scrunch!" and there goes the other eyebrow. along with most of the top layers of sensitive skin on my face and below my eyes. "Don't worry, your eyebrows will grow back," she tells me.
"You can open your eyes now and sit up," explains the nurse. I hear these words, but I do not process them. I am still trying to determine if my face was bleeding from the tape, and if I would need to worry about getting my eyebrows waxed again for a very long time.
"I wonder how much an eyebrow pencil costs," I think,"so I can draw fake ones on my forehead. Those old ladies with drawn in eyebrows always look so funny! I wonder why they do that...."
"Uh, You can open your eyes now and sit up," she says again, breaking my reverie,"and unclench your hands." I open two very blurred, foggy eyes, and can discern eight very white fingers and two very white thumbs in my lap. I must have been clenching my fingers together the whole time. I get up and gather my belongings as blood returns to my deadened fingers and grey nails. As I am escorted to the post-op room, I draw my hand to my forehead and cheeks and am delighted to discover I still have eyebrows and skin. The lights are dimmed in the post-op room.
The doc comes in, again in those strangely humorous blue scrubs, and hands me my post-op kit. Or maybe it was already in the room waiting for me. Everything is grey and foggy and fuzzy, but despite this, I can already tell my vision is better. Doc explains some stuff that passes in one ear and right out the other. Something about keeping my eyes closed as mich as possible, filling prescriptions, wearing provided "rock-star" sunglasses, and who knows what other beneficial information that I was too in shock to take note of. I again gather my stuff and walk out to the receptionist. I am supposed to have a ride, but I was planning to call Corwin after surgery. I am supposed to hand my chart to the receptionist, but forget to as I am fumbling with my Blackberry, trying to turn it on. I cant see the buttons very clearly, and can't remember how to turn it on. The receptionist has to ask for the chart, and I feel very stupid.
And I still can't turn on the phone. Oh, yeah, hit the Backlight button three times. I find Corwin's phone entry out more memory and feel than sight and call him to come pick me up.
I sit in the reception area and wait, while almost having to fight back tears. I feel very traumatized, very NOT tough, very emotionally drained. Corwin arrives in no time and escorts me out, thoughfully putting his hand up to show me the closed side of the glass doubledoors on the way out. Just in time too, as I almost smacked headlong into it. That could potentially have been the shortest laser correction in history as I am sure the impact would have dislodged my now very fragile corneas. What genious thought it was a good idea to put glass doors to the surgical suite for outpatient eye surgery?
But, alas, the adventure is over. I go home, get prescribed drugs, and sleep better than I had in weeks.