This is probably unusual, but there's always this thing I find in strangers which intrigues me. I was at Optimax ytd for my "All laser lasik" surgery. When I entered the surgical waiting room, there were 2 men sitting so comfortably on the couch, with their legs crossed. Both of them were in surgical gowns, head caps and feet wraps. For a moment I was wondering if they were surgeons or patients. 1 of them went in for surgery, and in the midst of all the silence and anxiety, this other guy asked me a question which led to an interesting conversation. We finally got interrupted by the surgeon who had to explain to us our procedures. Without a proper end to our conversation, he went ahead with his surgery and we went separate ways afterwards. This morning, I had to return to the eye centre for a check up. As i was leaving the building, I bumped into him again, we were both rushing so it was just a "hello-goodbye" thing. What caught my attention though was that he said "See you later" as he was walking away. He said the exact same words before he went into the surgical room ytd. It made me ponder, will I ever see this person again? He really seems to be someone I could easily befriend. Some things just come and go. I don't know, I guess life is interesting that way. So mysterious and unpredictable.
Coming to my Lasik experience. Honestly, I thk it would be less scary if it was entirely machine dependent. What scares me most was when I was told that the degree of power elimination depends highly on my head positioning. The way I orient my eyes to the machine determines the residual power. Of course, there's a guiding indicator, which comes in the form of 4 lights which is supposed to form a perfect square apparently.
"All laser lasik" is a 2-stage procedure, using only laser for the entire surgery. Firstly, a super thin flap is raised, followed by reshaping of the cornea. The important thing in the entire procedure is to be able to hold still the eyeball. Really really still. There was a moment when I totally lost my vision when they applied high pressure to my eyeball, and I had NO IDEA if I actually kept it very still. I heard the count down and i was extremely impatient. I didn't know how long more I could hold still. Everything was white. It took approximately 22 seconds to raise the flap. This is the most dangerous part of the surgery, I was told. Before the commencement of the second part of the surgery, I was asked if the lights above me were parallel. I was under so much of pressure, you'd never understand. Parallel. It took me a while to interpret this word. I wasn't sure what he meant by that. The lights were surely not square like he mentioned earlier. I didn't know what I was supposed to do. The lights seemed a lil off, not too parallel to me, but the 4 lights were parallel to each other. I was thinking so hard. I kept quiet even after the surgeon asked me a couple of times. I started looking around, and he emphasized sternly a couple more times that I'm supposed to look at the 4 lights as a whole. With much doubts, I finally said yes, weakly, softly, vaguely. He asked again, I repeated my answer. He then informed me that the machine calibration indicated that the position was alright. I guess I was more relief to hear that, because I trust the machine much more than I trust myself. Human error, u know, is inevitable. And, Jamie error, is much much higher. Anyway, so I proceeded with the surgery by looking at the central green beam as instructed. That wasn't as hard as the previous steps.
Right after the surgery, I looked into the mirror and my first reaction was "My eyeball is distorted!" My iris wasn't perfectly round, It was sort of cut-off on the medial side, giving this illusion that my entire eyeball was rotated to the corner of my eye. I thought there was a mistake there, but the nurse assured me by saying that it is absolutely normal. True enough, my iris came back to normal in about an hour's time. The irritation came during the 2nd post-surgical hour, but it didn't last long. I could tell that my eyesight was already corrected by the time I left the surgical bed. It was only a lil bit hazy due to the flap. There is still bleeding on my conjunctiva, which would probably persist for another 2 weeks or so. Being overwhelmed with the lights issue, I actually woke up in the middle of the night wondering if it had affected the outcome of my surgery. I guess this would haunt me for a while. Your vision, afterall, is the most important thing in your life. Well, for me, at least. I'm hoping I didn't just do something which I would regret for the rest of my life.
It was a scary experience. I'd be glad if I never have to undergo the same procedure ever again.
However, I can now kiss GOODBYE to my over-sized glasses. ;)
Thank you, Dr Chuah. ;)
