THE PROCEDURE

So the procedure was pretty simple.

After giving the very rich doctor a quarter of my life savings, I signed away my right to sue in the event that I go blind as a result of the surgery.

(This is the last picture of me wearing glasses...EVER!!!!!)



They take me to a prep room.

Then into the laser room.

I lie down in the chair while the laser is calibrated. It makes a loud zapping sound. Like the sound sparks make or that lightning/electricity show at the Science Museum. Zap zap zap zap zap zap zap. Really fast.

I'm nervous.

Dr. Maloney comes in the room.

I'm not Angie. Or Cindy. Or Dennis Quaid. Or one of his other A-List clients.

He doesn't go out of his way to make me feel A-List. I'm clearly just his 10:30.

I'm more nervous.

The first part begins. Creating the flap.

They stick this metal contraption in my eye to hold it open and keep me from blinking. Very Clockwork Orange.

I go to the first laser which in the span of seconds creates thousands of microscopic bubbles between the outer and middle layers of my cornea. (Kind of like a perforated magazine subscription mailer thing so that you can easily tear it off.)



The doc says things like "beautiful" and "perfect" in a slowwww supposed-to-be-soothing-but-totally-is-not way because you just know he says it to every single person who goes through there, even if he is fucking up big-time.

Once the perforation ins created we move to the other laser.

The doctor gently lifts and peels back the flap that he just created and exposes the middle layer of the cornea. This is really weird and terrifying because you can see the flap slilding back and when it does you go almost totally blind. Or at least I did.

I'm glad I didn't have this view though...

There probably would have been vomiting.



So your eye is totally exposed and the laser lowers. And all you see is a blinking orange light.

And it starts zapping really fast.

ZAP ZAP ZAP ZAP ZAP ZAP ZAP. Burning away your cornea to reshape it.



This is kind of cool. You can actually see your vision getting less blurry with each zap as it disintegrates sections of the tissue. Also you can smell the unmistakable smell of burnt cornea.

It lasts for about 40 seconds. (During which I was terrified of losing my focus on the light lest it zap away the wrong section of my eye.)

But that's it. 8 minutes and it's all done.

They remove the scary blink-prevention clamp and smooth the flap back into place. The flap supposedly rebonds quickly since the cornea is the fastest healing part of the body.

They snap protective moisture goggles on you, tell you not to open your eyes for 4-6 hours, and unload you onto your lovely Asian friend.




I took an Ambien and Valium and slept for a good 6 hours.

After that my eyes looked like this.



I can see!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

(Still a little blurry at press time, but I think it's supposed to improve over the next few days.)

I ended up watching this documentary Born Rich directed by Jamie Johnson (Johnson & Johnson heir) about...well...a bunch of rich douchebags.

I was startled to catch a shot of Abby in the documentary. Turns out she used to date Jamie for a little bit.



Now I've got the goggles back on. This is what I look like at this very moment that I'm writing this:



Bedtime for sleepies!

Tomorrow: SUNGLASS SHOPPING!!!!!!!!!!!!!