OT: Living Life as a lasik failure

I have been wearing glasses since I was 10 years old - so it's always been my secret wish to have laser surgery so that I wouldn't have to wear contacts or glasses anymore.

In March my Dad had cataract surgery, and he was so happy with the outcome that he said that he would paay for me to have laser surgery if I wanted it - so I jumped at this one time only opportunity and arranged to have lasik surgery - which I did have April 15th.

The first day afterward I could see perfectly. And as the day progressed things got cloudier and cloudier until the end of the day - I couldn't see very well at all. And that is how things have stayed since then.

I have had super shitty vision since April 15th and it's now October 2nd, 2011. I have what Lasik Surgery calls "20/25" vision - and they consider that "Actually pretty good".

I can't see the floor, I can't see my dogs - what you with your twenty/twenty vision can see from five feet away - I have to get within one foot of.

That's what 20/25 vision means. For the longeset time Lasik said they weren't really interested in doing any kind of revision to my eyes - they were going to do a wait and see - maybe my eyes would get better on their own.

But in the meantime - I can't see. I can't drive after dark, I can't see the floor to vacuum, I can't see my dogs, there's no use watching tv - I can't see it - everything is blurry. And when you are a visual person like me - what's the use of living when you can't see anything? Everything is meaningless.

And Lasik Surgery just doesn't seem to get it - I would go there for my consultations, and tell them these things - and they would just glosss over it.

My vision was "unstable". To me it didn't seem unstable - every day I could not see.

If I went to a regular eye care practitioner - they'd prescribe me glasses - but Lasik seems completely willing to let you leave their office totally unable to see anything - for the unforseeable future.

Staff at Lasik need to receive sensitivity training about this. That is for sure.

The reason I'm writing this is because today I tried to do some sewing - I had this beautiful antique sewing machine refinished - and I got it back yesterday - and I was so excited to do some sewing today - and it was SO frustrating trying to sew - it was almost impossible.

To try and thread the needle I had to put on really thick reading glasses, put a lamp right next to the thread with the lampshade off, and then hold my breath.

I hemmed three pairs of pants, made 2 kerchiefs for the dogs and did a thing for my Dad's cane - and one of the pairs of pants was navy in colour - and let me tell you - that was next to impossible. I could not see what I was doing at all - that was done on a lick and a prayer - and I got a crinkle in the hem.

I haven't gotten a crinkle in the hem of a pair of pants in 15 years. Luckily it was on the inside.

My life has been affected by my lasik surgery 100%.

You can probably tell I like to take pictures. I still take the pictures - I just don't know what I'm taking a picture of. Hopefully someday I'll be able to take pictures, sew, vacuum properly - and see my dogs from a distance again.

I got a call last week that they've scheduled an "enhancement procedure" for December 30th" - that means they're going to redo the surgery then.

I really hope they get it right on December 30th - supposedly the first time I had "swelling of the corneas" - it didn't have anything to do with the surgery.

I didn't have any fear at all when I went into surgery for the first time. I figured 100's of thousands of surgery's had been done succesfully - and all of the people I had talked to said that it was the best thing they'd ever done - why would my surgery be any different?

I'm a bit more leery this time. I really hope it works out this time. I have faith it'll work this time. For some reason that's the way I am.

If you google "lasik failures" you'll come up with a lot of results - hopefully with this post - my blog post will come up as one more result. I don't know if I'd do it over again. Certainly I don't know if I'd do it by Lasik MD.