"I can see clearly now that the corneal stroma tissue is gone...

....It's gonna be a bright bright bright bright sunshiny day" (which reminds me, I need to get some sunglasses)

Well, I'm really behind on blogging.  There are a few reasons, but I'm blaming most of it on my LASEK...

On the way to my surgery - last few moments as a 4-eyes.

I was pretty nervous as Jake drove me to the Kellogg Eye Center.  Luckily they gave me a Valium so I wasn't that nervous.

Dr. Soong walked me through all the steps before he began.  My only job was to look at the blinking red light, and I took that job seriously.  He did my right eye first.  I had to close my eyes while he sterilized everything.  When he asked me to open my eyes to tape down my eye lashes, apparently I did a great job.  He said "Oh that's a fantastic eye opening!  Most generous eye opening I've had in a long time."  haha!  Who knew I was so good at opening my eyes?!?  

The actual corrective laser part of the surgery is very quick, less than a minute.  I just remember holding my breath and trying to to move a single fiber of my being.  I know that the laser is tracking my pupil location several thousand times per second, but I was trying my best not to mess anything up.  

Here's the video of my LASEK.  It's funny, I had no problem watching Jake's surgery, but it grosses me out to watch my own.  I think because I remember what it felt like.  Or maybe I'm just weaker than I was last year.  Probably both.

Right after the surgery.  Look at the smile.  That's cause my eyes were still numb.  That smile didn't last much longer.

They gave me pain pills to take while I recovered and I needed every last one of them.  When the pain set in it was like someone was pushing on my eyeballs and I couldn't find relief from the pressure and scratching pain.  A lot of times when I have major pain (like a cyst) I can find a position to alleviate the pain while my medicine kicks in, but there was no escaping this pain.  My eyes were closed and tears were just streaming down my cheeks (I wasn't crying, they were just reacting to the trauma).  I listened to Harry Potter audiobooks to take my mind off it as best as I could.  Once we got on top of the pain, my mom and Jake gave me meds round the clock so we didn't fall behind again.  After several hours of sleeping and relief I finally felt like eating.  (that's fancy apple cider in that water bottle, in case you were wondering).

A mom is never off duty...

I went in the next day and the pain was already considerably better.  I had bandage contacts in my eyes for a week and they drove me crazy.  On Sunday morning I woke up with really dry eyes (probably cause I sometimes sleep with my eyes open, slightly, it's not gross ok, well maybe a little, I remember in college Snort would take pictures of me sleeping with them open just to prove to me that I did).  Anyways, when I woke up I ran to the bathroom to put eye drops in, but it was too late.  I blinked and the contact in my right eye stuck to the inside of my eyelid and got all folded in my eye.  I grabbed it out, cleaned it, and put it back in but the whole fiasco set my eye on fire.  I really didn't want to miss church but I had to take my last pain pill and sleep the rest of the day.

At my one week follow up I could read some of the 20/15 letters even though they were fuzzy.  Which is fantastic!  My eyes will continue healing, regenerating the epithelials, and improving over the next three months.  So those results this early are really encouraging.  When Dr. Soong looked at my eyes with his fancy tools he said "Oh YAY!  These are looking Fantastic with a capital F!"

Dr. Soong is hilarious.  Most of my follow up appointment was spent talking about BYU and Mormons.  He just loves all of the Mormons he works with and loves to talk about their missions.  He said he went to lunch with a colleague that spoke Vietnamese from his mission.  They went to a Vietnamese place for lunch and Dr. Soong thought it was hilarious that the owner ignored him (an Asian) and went straight to the white guy to talk in his native tongue.  Then Dr. Soong told me that he went to Moab with his kids and it seemed very un-Mormon like.  The hotel owner told him that MOAB stands for Mormons On A Binge.  He thought it was funny, but he didn't think it was true based on the Mormons he knows.  He's such a smart guy, he knows like 9 languages and has his undergrad in electrical engineering.  I asked him how long til I could wear makeup again cause I was starting to feel like a scrounge (I think it was 3 weeks total).  He looked at me and said "one more week.  Don't worry.  Jake will forgive you."  haha!  My mom pointed out that he is doing missionary work and doesn't even know it because of the way he talks about our church.

I have another follow up in a month.  This week my left eye is pretty blurry (normal part of the healing process).  It makes it hard to read (and blog).  It wouldn't be that bad if I could only wink.  But since I somehow missed learning that basic skill, I'm left covering my eye with my hand if I need to see something up close in detail.  Maybe I need a pirate patch...

When I come downstairs after baby bed time I have been searching for my glasses - that used to be my normal routine.  I'd find my glasses (that I took off before the craziness of bath time), then I would clean them, then sit down to watch TV.  It's been so weird to realize I don't need them.  I bought a cheap pair of sunglasses for the first time.  And I put them on top of my head when I went into the store.  Normally I have to open my purse and switch them out for my normal glasses.  I might even consider adding headbands or hats back into my wardrobe (they would compete with my glasses for the valuable real estate behind my ears.)  A new world is opening up to me!

Part of my recovery includes steroid eye drops (yes, more prednisone, ugh) and anti-biotic eye drops.  This brings me to my final topic.  Why do people put eye drops in the wrong way?  Several times during all of this the people at the eye center have had to put eye drops in my eyes.  They always ask you to tilt your head back, look upward, and try not to blink when a small ball is barreling toward your eye - directly in your field of vision.  Of course I'm going to blink!  Duh!

I don't know who taught me how to put eye drops in or if I just figured this out on my own.  You tilt your head to the side, rest your hand on your cheek, hold the eye drops at the corner of your eye in your peripheral vision, and let gravity do the work.  Much easier to put in since you're not watching the drops shoot at your eyeball.  Maybe I'm the odd one here.... wouldn't be the first time. :-)

Wrong way to put eye drops in vs the right way (according to me anyways)...