Blow-by-blow From Peter's Lasik Operation

Well, I had Lasik done this week. Very interesting process, especially since you are looking right at most of it while it is done. I thought I would give a blow-by-blow account, at least partly so that I remember what happened and what it felt like.

They started me out with a motrin and some valium to relax me (I was nervous), and then gave me some numbing drops and disinfectant to prepare the area for surgery. The picture above is me after the valium. Very relaxed, huh? Then, we went into a small room where they had the flap-making laser. This is a machine that uses lasers to create millions of tiny bubbles just below the surface of the cornea. When the vision correction is to be done, these bubbles allow the doctor to peel back the corneal surface, thus creating a "flap."

I laid down on the table and it turns out my legs were a little longer than most, so they had me tuck my legs in so that the table could rotate underneath the laser. First, they put in a device that held my eye open. Then they put a suction cup on my eyeball. When they put pressure to the suction cup, it cut off the blood flow and my vision in that eye went gray, so I couldn’t see with that eye what happened next. But from what I was told, the laser machine docked on top of the suction cup and created the flap. Then, we moved to the other eye.

The pictures above and below show me in the back room having the flap done and on the big screen, you can see what is happening to my eye.

They did the same procedure with keeping the eye open and putting the suction cup on. However, the suction cup was not seated right, so they had to redo it. The second time, my vision did not gray-out when the put the suction cup on. I asked about this and they said that sometimes vision does not gray-out when the suction cup pressure is turned on. However, at this point, there was a machine error and they had to reboot the computer operating the machine. They took all of the stuff off of my eye and let me relax. The valium had kicked in and I was quite relaxed. I thought it rather funny that the staff seemed to be stressing that it was taking so long for the computer to reboot. If they had some of that valium stuff, they would have been fine. :) Although, I’m not sure I would want them taking that before working on my eyes. :) The machine finally rebooted and they created the flap on my left eye.

Then we walked a few steps into the next room where they have the vision correction laser. (This picture is me sitting underneath the vision correction laser, but before they started doing anything.) After putting me down on the table, they noticed that I had an eyelash in my eye. Dr. Smit got that out and then they taped my eyelid open and put a little device on my eye to allow the doctor to work. Then, Dr. Smit began to peel back the corneal flap. The first flap was a little sticky, so it took a bit of him pulling on it to come off. It was kind of surreal for me during this time, because I can see him working on trying to get the flap to come up. Of course, he was quite gentle and very good about it, but I could tell that the flap was being rather stubborn. As he was trying to get the flap to come up, my eye would move up or over as the case may be and I would be looking form a different angle at the lights above me.

There were several sets of lights. On the outside there were four banks of whitish-purplish lights at what looked like four corners. I think these were for illuminating my eye. In the middle, there was a blinking green light (I think for me to focus on) and on either side of this there were two red lights (I think these were the lasers). When the flap was opened (actually only took him about 15 seconds to get it opened), my vision of the green and red lights got much more fuzzy. It looked like I was underwater. Then, I was instructed to look at the green blinking light and the laser went to work. I could smell a burning smell. I could faintly see something that looked like a little gray at the edge of the green light that appeared to be the laser doing its work. After about 20 seconds, it was done. Dr. Smit put the flap back in place and I could see pretty clearly almost immediately, but there was nothing really to look at and my eye was only open for about a second before they closed it.

Debra was watching all of this and a friend of hers from high school who is also an eye surgeon, Dr. Hinton, happened to stop by while the surgery was taking place. He sat down with her and explained what was happening as it was happening.

Then, they moved to the second eye. The second eye happened just about like the first eye. Then, they had me close my eyes for a few seconds before I sat up. When I sat up, I could already see much better than before, although everything was slightly cloudy. Then, we went into the recovery room. I kept my eyes closed most of the time. Whenever I tried to open them, large amounts of tears wanted to come out. After these tears all fell out, however, I could already see quite well, at least as well as when wearing glasses. However, my eyes were still irritated and needed to heal, so I kept them closed as much as possible. I slept for a few hours when I got home. Then, I got up and most of the cloudiness and irritation was gone. However, the eye where they had to put the suction cup on three different times is quite red (they told me this would be the case).

I am writing this the next morning and most of the irritation is gone, although there is still some dryness which I understand will continue until certain nerve endings in the flap grow back.