Procedure Day
Day of procedure.
Rachel and I woke up very early Showered up, and headed out to Minneapolis to the Medical Center.
We got there a little before 7am. We waited a few minutes in the lobby area until someone brought us back to our room.
I had to sign the consent form, which is spooky reading, but I am sure is all worst case scenario stuff.
The we figured out payment, I opted for the CareCredit Program. It is basically a credit card you use for medical stuff, I have 6 months no interest.
Next she went over all the eye drops. There are 5 different drops, an antibiotic, steroid, pain, and 2 for lubrication.. I am pretty bad a giving myself eye drops, but I bet I will be pretty good in a few days.
We watched 10 minute video the Dr. made about the procedure, it again was very thorough and touched base on all the frequent questions people have.
I opted to take a mild sedative, I probably didn’t need it at this point, but she said it would make me sleepy, and since I am not a napper and that is required I figured it wouldn’t hurt..
At about 8am the Doctor came and and he looked over my chart, he was much more positive about the procedure than the videos and other staff were. I am sure they have to stay realistic and treat everyone the same, but he said I was a very good candidate, and that my prescription looked great for it.
He said they could have done Lasik on both eyes but the one was borderline and thought it would be better to do PRK on it.
He did mention a 99% chance of 20/20 or better, so that was very positive.
He said he needed to take me in the other room for a minute, but that was the room and we had begun.
I took my glasses off for the last time, and he quickly looked at both eyes with little microscope thing and next I was hopping on the table to begin.
The room is kept a little cooler, which is nice when it is a high pressure situation.
There was no fooling around in this room, they was no smalltalk and they just went to it like machines.
I laid on the bed, head in a indented area, he put a pillow under my knees to make it more comfortable.
I got a bunch of numbing drops which work right away, he patched one eye and said I could close my eyes for a minute since there was really bright lights in close proximity.
Right eye first, Lasik procedure.
The Dr. taped back my eyelashes and inserted a ring of some nature to keep me from blinking. This was probably the only thing that was uncomfortable.
Most reports mention the vacuum being the uncomfortable part, so maybe this was part of that..
Everything went so fast and methodically that it was hard to tell what was really going on.
I know that they cut a flap in the cornea, then hit it with a laser, then put the flap back..
The only way I could tell when they used the laser is when a Nurse would start a countdown and I could smell something burning a little bit… This whole process was very brief.
I could tell when they folded the flap back and smoothed it out, and put in some liquid, and removed the ring.
Left eye, PRK procedure.
Within a few seconds they were onto the left eye.
A little different procedure than the right since they do not make a flap with PRK, but everything seemed identical.
I felt the laser a little bit on the left eye, but it did not hurt, I could just tell it was working.. And of course the faint smell of something burning..
Then some rinsing and removal of ring thing. They took off the patch, gave me my 1st set of drops for the day, and sat me up.
I looked up saw Rachael looking through the window..
The whole wall was window so people can watch the procedure, and Rachael watched the whole thing (she said she was just going to peek, but ended up not being able to stop watching).
She said one of the screens was a closeup of my eye and it would highlight red dots then look like lightning bolts on my eye… cool.
Next I walked over to the microscope again.
The Dr. looked up close at his work and said everything looked and went perfect, which is nice to hear.
He handed my my glasses back and said “you will not be needing these” haha.
Then we went out the door to where Rachael was, and we were free to go.
The whole procedure was not much more than one song on the radio… wow.
Now to get home and nap..
You can see my hourly, daily, weekly, monthly updates in the Post-Op section.