Since I was 10 or 11 I have always worn glasses as I have Myopia or ‘short-sightedness’. Myopia is a condition of the eye where the light that comes in does not directly focus on the retina but in front of it. This causes the image that one sees when looking at a distant object to be out of focus but in focus when looking at a close object.
In preparation of my travels I wanted to get this surgically corrected so that I could enjoy all outdoors activities without the need for wearing glasses. I also wanted to eliminate the risk of losing my glasses overseas. While I was in the USA I once left my glasses behind in the hotel room before going out and trying to read signs to find out where I should be going was a real frustration. I don’t want to be by myself in a foreign country struggling to see where I’m going!
After much consideration and suitability assessments, I had the surgery done on the 7th March 2012. First of all I went and met with the nurse who explained in detail what was going to happen during the surgery. All the talk of cutting my eye open to make a flap and the possibility of smelling my own eye burning made me a bit anxious and by the end of our conversation I was more nervous than ever. My nerves had got the best of me and I burst into tears. By this stage I just wanted to get it over and done with. Knowing that I would have my eyes open during a scary situation went against everything my body was telling me: If your scared, close your eyes and RUN!! Nope, I would be awake with my eyes open the whole time during the surgery and I wouldn’t be able to move!
Next up I went into a sterile room where numbing drops were put into my eyes and I was told to lay down on a bench ready to be put under the first laser. Once under the first laser, an American voice told me ‘Suction On’ which meant the laser was ready to make the “flap” or cut into the first eye. It was about 5 seconds into this (it takes 19 seconds) that I started to hyperventilate as I knew what was happening and my basic instinct to avoid pain started up. The nurse held my hand and told me to breath slowly which took all of my concentration to do. By the time the first eye had been done I had managed to calm myself back down.
After both eyes had been cut open I then got moved around to the second laser which is the laser that makes the correction to my sight. This laser was not as bad as I focused on how the lights in front of me looked like funny UFO’s moving from side to side. After the corrections had been done, the flaps were put back down into place by the Doctor and I was ready to go complete with my little bag of goodies aka eye drops.
Dad was ready and waiting to take me home and in the car. I put my sunglasses on and closed my eyes. Everything felt fine until about 2 hours later when the numbing drops had completely worn off… I couldn’t open my eyes, they wouldn’t stop weeping and the pain was unbearable. It was like someone was poking my eyes with needles and it wouldn’t stop! Luckily Dad had some pain killers and after taking these, I finally felt ok enough that I was no longer regretting what I had done given the amount of pain I was in. I tried to sleep and got to wear these very attractive eye shields to stop myself from touching my eyes during my sleep.
The next day my eyes felt much better and I went into the clinic for my post operative check up. Everything was healing as it should have been so that was good news. The only side affect I had was throwing up, possibly caused by the pain killers or the anxiety and stress of the whole event. After arriving back home and getting some more sleep I woke up feeling a lot better.
It’s now been a few weeks and I’m back to normal. My sight is 20/20 and I only have mild dryness in my left eye which should clear up over the coming days. It is truly amazing to be able to see the world clearly without the need for glasses or putting contact lenses in my eyes. Even with all the pain I went through, it really is some short term suffering for some long term gain and I’m so glad I did it.
My next post will be early April when I start the first leg of my travels: New Zealand’s South Island.
