I had things poked onto the surface of my eye today, stared into a laser while it burned off my corneal tissue, and slept for 5 hours in the middle of the day for no better reason than that my eyes hurt. And I paid lots of money for the privilege!
I went for my LASIK consultation at SingLasik 2 weeks ago, right before Chinese New Year. The consultant, Dr Chua Wei Han, determined that I was a suitable LASIK candidate so we went ahead with the actual surgery on the 25th. In preparation for surgery, I’ve been wearing my glasses full-time – no more contacts since I came back from KL. It seems to be operation week at the office, my boss went in for root canal treatment earlier this week.
The glossy booklet that they gave me after my LASIK consultation seemed to suggest that LASIK was magic – in and out and ta-da! Perfect vision instantly. Well, it didn’t quite happen that way, but if they were to detail the discomfort, people would get turned off.
Firstly, 2 weeks ago, they put in pupil-dilating drops so that the doctor could get a better look at the inside of my eye. The effect of these drops were twofold: They made me much more sensitive to light (Bio students, please write me 3 sentences explaining why) and for some reason they also “froze” my lens. The lens of my eye was unable to accommodate and become thicker or thinner as needed, so I wore my specs to see into the distance and took it off for near work such as reading and using the computer. Perhaps this is a preview of how middle age will be like. The effects lasted all of Thursday and Friday, and only wore off on Saturday in time for me to go back to KL for the reunion dinner.
Today, they gave me a shower cap, gown and shoe covers. The shoe covers were pointy and made me look as though I was wearing elf shoes. Sadly I had to switch off my phone and didn’t get a picture. The nurse also stuck a coloured sticker above my right eye, just so we don’t get mixed up as to which is which. Then after some eye prep and a briefing, the doctor ushered me into the laser suite. I lay down on the bed of the laser machine, and the bright lights got all in my face. Eventually the doctor took a seat behind me and put on the suction ring. I wish he could have told me what he was doing and what was going to happen, because there were a few times that I flinched when all he wanted to do was put some anaesthetic drops in my eye. I’m a twitchy person!
The right eye got the suction ring, he told the nurse “on”, and my vision slowly dimmed and went black. The pressure increased further as they slid me under the femtosecond laser, and I couldn’t move my head but still had to let out some nervous energy, so I tapped my index fingers against the bed. They didn’t do a countdown for me 
so I had to distract myself with the tapping and playing “Don’t Stop Believing” inside my head. Then the left eye had the same treatment.
“Okay, the hard part is over!” my doctor said, then slid the excimer laser over my head. Damn these bright lights. It took him a while to flip over the corneal flap – it’s like a few micrometers thick, so totally not easily to handle something so delicate. Through it all, a flashing red light kept me company as I held Disco Night in the privacy of my imagination. The tap-tap-tap sound started up, there was a slight burning smell – not pungent at all, smokers are much smellier – and a staff member counted out the 4 sets of laser zapping. I continued with my finger tapping and looking at my friend, the red light. It got kinda boring looking at it after a while, your neurons just stop responding to it, but I just had to STAY FOCUSED or else my investment will go down the drain.
The left eye got the same clamp insertion treatment, followed by the corneal flap flipping, then the laser. Shortly after it finished, Dr Chua asked me if I had been diligent in using the eye drops he prescribed 2 weeks earlier. Apparently once or twice a day was not enough, my left eye was on the dry side so he put on a bandage contact lens to keep it moist. I can sleep with it, and he’ll remove it tomorrow after the post-op consultation.
I could definitely see far things more clearly straight out of the laser suite – wordings above doors were readable, whereas they’d just have been blurs in the past. That’s not to say I was comfortably seeing straight away – everything had a foggy, cloudy feel (my cousin’s wife described it as looking through a piece of plastic) and the glare was horrible. The contact lens bandage was another $10.70 on the bill, the rest of it was paid before the operation. Good idea to pre-pay since most people are probably a little disoriented post-op. They gave me a pair of plastic shades to wear to sleep – they double up as sunglasses as well.
I have 2 eyedrops that go in every few hours, one is an antibiotic while the other is a steroid. Then I have some lubricating eye drops for whenever things feel dry. My left eye feels fine, actually – it’s my right eye that has a weird feeling. Like there’s something between my lower eyelid and the eye. Everything still looks a bit halo-ey, like someone turned up the Glow on my visual world. But I definitely feel better now compared to 7 hours ago – I took a cab back, and by the time I arrived I was in pain, my eyes were burning, the right one hurt like no one’s business, and the only thing I could do was sleep since I couldn’t even open my eyes to watch TV or something. So I set my alarm for the next dose of medicines at 3.30pm and went to sleep. Repeat dosage, set for 5.30pm and sleep. Somewhere between the alarms, the pain got so bad I took 2 ibuprofen. Now I feel fine.
Would I recommend LASIK? I’ll tell you again tomorrow – I expect to wake up to a world of visual acuity I haven’t experienced since I was 10 or 11 years old. Is the surgery for everyone? You’d have to make an appointment with a specialist to find out. I chose SingLasik because it’s part of Singapore General Hospital, so they’re not so profit-driven and they have access to research and training facilities that private companies may not have. Also, it’s cheaper. But if you’re the twitchy, scared-of-pain type, my experience might scare you off. I don’t even think I had a bad experience – side effects are to be expected after any surgery. And I’m not any braver than most people – I just cope better with the fear, knowing that I’m in good hands. I’ve been through dental surgery where a dentist wrested an embedded tooth out of my palate. I’ve been poked and prodded by many needles of many sizes. I’ve had tubes inserted into my chest, had them removed, and had another one run up my vein. Suffice to say, somewhere along the line, I learned to deal.
My hair’s grown back in nicely, although I could do without the curl. Now my eyes are on the way to perfect. Next thing to fix: My teeth. I intend to become a public figure in Singapore soon, so have to take care of my image you know? And shh. I know I need to lose weight also. But unlike LASIK and dental services, you don’t need to go to an expert to lose weight.
Update 26th February: I went back for my 1-day post-operative review and everything’s fine, the doctor took out the bandage contact lens which apparently had refractive power. Oh, that explains why my left eye failed the vision test. Everything looked blurry on that side. I’m due to go back next week.
Ha, everything is so clear it’s as though I’m wearing contact lenses but I’m not! Hahahaa! Come home tired and can just hop into bed! Wheee! This rocks, and even the idea of putting in eyedrops every 30 minutes is fine. That’s only a temporary measure anyway.
