20/20

I started wearing glasses when I was in fourth grade and failed the school eye test. I then started wearing contacts when I was 15 and quickly moved to hard contacts (I was told if I didnt I could lose my sight entirely by the time I was 23, the hard contacts acted kind of like braces for my quickly changing teenage eyes). I developed a double astimatism and was considered legally blind (not correctable to 20/20 with glasses). I really never was interested in LASIK, glasses and contact were all I  actually remember and they seemed to be working great. The tipping point came when I got pregnant and then delivered Hadley - my eyes were dry from pregnancy and irritated and then with the c-section I didnt wear contacts (hard to put in when flat out and on an iv) for a few days and glasses are blurry, in addition you can only be out of hard contacts for about 3 days before the "callouses" you have built up on your eyes starts going and it can hurt when you start wearing them again. It was finally enough to start looking into it, my brother just had it done and loved the place he had them done. I checked them out in Austin but had to wait until I was neither pregnant or nursing. Last November I had the consult and set it up for the spring when I could come for a month and my mom could help watch the kids. I mentioned in a previous post that I had to be out of contacts for 5 weeks and then the day I arrived they did the finally evaluation to approve it - I was a little nervous bc they put me in hard contacts bc my eyes were changing and wasnt sure if I would pass the final evaluation since your eyes can change a certain percent. I was thrilled when they approved!! The check up also reminded me that I am really used to people putting stuff in my eyes and the dr assured me that people in hard contacts typically breeze through the surgery.

Pic I sent to Jamie of my eye shields after surgery

The next day I showed up and they gave me Valium, I mentioned to the dr I respond really strongly to medication and they actually rushed me into surgery afraid that the Valium would make me fall asleep and prevent them from doing the procedure - so I had the surgery about 10 minutes before the Valium kicked in. It did make me really sleepy and shaky so it was good they did! And the surgery was no big deal - 10 seconds in one and 20 seconds in the other machine and that was it! They did peel back part of your eye and you could tell, that was a little creepy.... My eyes stung for an hour or two after but the drugs knocked me out. They were dry and you had to put drops in and slightly irritated like when I leave my contacts in too late. I hesitate to say the recovery was really easy, because the dr said that the side effects were so similar to hard contacts that people rarely complain. That is what I found - the "halos" they said I would see were about what I typically see, my night vision has always been bad and by night my eyes are always a little irritated, I also never touched my eyes with hard contacts so it isnt a problem not rubbing them for the 5-6 months they recommend. I am three weeks out and I see better than I ever did with contacts and only have to put drops in once or twice in the morning. My brother ended up using drops regularly until almost 6 months, but it sounded like my eyes produced extra tears for the hard contacts so it hasnt been an issue. 

I LOVE seeing!! It is taking some getting used to, I honestly go to take my contacts out every night! My eyes are still a little blurry when I get up so I havent quite seen the alarm clock yet - but it is so nice to see when I get up at night and just in general. I remember friends saying I will wonder why I didnt do it early, and I totally do!!