09 June, 2010

Getting nervous

Bill and I met with the eye surgeon back in May - the 14th, I think - and we decided to schedule my surgery for June 22nd. So it's been about three weeks, and I still have two weeks to go.

Maybe we scheduled too far out, because I'm getting nervous. I really hate my bifocals (progressives are easy to adjust to, like hell) and I still get headaches and eye strain and they just make me miserable, but... Surgery? Me?

Financing is all arranged, I've been perfect in my 'pre-op regimen', but... I still have two weeks to go. I'm really balking at spending the money. Since I'm getting the wavefront intralase (a completely laser-guided, laser-cutting procedure that's customized for my unique eye structures, patterns, and oddities) it comes to nearly $3,000 per eye. It'll total $5700. Spent on ME. It makes me super jittery just to think about that much money. We're going to an eye surgery center in South Dakota - they were recommended as the regional specialists who take the tougher cases (like severely nearsighted and astigmatic me) as well as folks other surgeons have messed up. Everyone there was super nice, and they did I-lost-track-how-many-tests-and-scans on my eyes. Swirly light things and bip-bip-bip flashing light things and lines and x's and side to side scan things and it was all very fascinating. They even glued little paper strips inside of my lower lid - quite itchy!! - and I had to sit with my eyes closed while they measured my eye moisture and tearing.

Everything looked great, other than I'm just about blind without my glasses.

Post-surgery, my vision is supposed to correct to 20/40 or better in both eyes, and there's an 84% chance that my night vision and dim light vision will be improved. I'll most likely still need reading glasses, available cheap at any drugstore. I have nice, thick corneas and my eyes are super healthy (other than mild dryness) so they're not expecting any problems. All that's fine.

But. Still. It's scary. And expensive. And June 22nd creeps closer and closer every day.

3 comments:

Wendy said...

You're worth every penny and then some.

Jeff Lyman said...

I agree. You're worth it. :-)

My sister had to get the old fashioned radical keratotomy surgery done because she's almost legally blind and laser surgery won't cut it. They did one eye at a time in case she did go blind (had to wear an eyepatch for two weeks each time). She went from 20/800 to 20/40. Now she can actually see her kids in the pool, and can see the clock on the bedstand at night. She and her husband had to scrape to get the money together, and she says it was totally worth it. A lifetime of coke bottle glasses is done.

Jean said...

You are worth it. Follow your post-op care religiously, and everything should go ok. There's always a chance it can go wrong -- I won't lie and say it couldn't. If they've screened you and say you're good, you should be.

All those things you wrote sound very positive. The worst thing about drug store reading glasses? You'll become one of those annoying people who say, "I can't read this, I forgot my glasses." (At least, that always used to bug me, but now I'm one of those people!)

Hugs. I want to encourage you, but I also want to be very clear that if you decide you really don't want to go through with it, don't.