My Peepers

My lasik surgery was a success.

I've just now been permitted to get back to reading, watching t.v. and computers. Can you imagine how bored I was yesterday? Those are the three things I do when I have free time.

I had a wonderful doctor. I had not met him before the surgery, but had heard great things about him from my current optometrist and my previous optometrist (who I actually called to check up on the lasik doctor).

Dr. Woolfson is based out of Atlanta, not Asheville, which is what I had been telling people. He is a hulk of a man... not hefty so much as tall. He probably has an inch or so advantage over my older brother even.

But he is a calm man and picked up pretty quickly on the state of my nerves.

I had already told the lady on the phone when I was arranging the appointment that I wanted drugs. Not the street kind, but something to make me relax. And she told me then that in all her years of working with Dr. Woolfson, only four patients had insisted on having those kinds of pills.

Fine. I planned to be number five.

That was not to be. When the nurses were doing pre-op exams, I again asked two of them, "Are you going to give me something for nerves?"

And they said, "Dr. Woolfson prefers that you are in control of all your faculties."

I countered immediately with, "I prefer that I am NOT in control of all of my faculties."

But the exam went on without another word about it.

Right around that time, I considered running. Either that or stomping my foot like a two-year-old and whining, "I want my drugs." Seriously, I almost cried.

And then I met the doctor. The first thing he said when he walked in was that he liked my purple sweatshirt. Then he showed me his purple socks, which he said he wears on surgery days, even though he's "not sure how that started."

He shook my hand, plopped my chart on my lap, using it as a desk, and started going over everything with me, making marks on my chart at times. He circled the number 38 on the chart and said, "Because of this number, your age, you know about the reading glasses?"

I didn't correct him that I actually just turned 39. But I said, "Oh, yeah, I know I'll probably need reading glasses."

He smiled and said, "No. That's the wrong answer. You're supposed to say, 'Yes, Dr. Woolfson, I know I will need reading glasses.'"

They stress that because invariably, after surgery, someone will complain because they need to wear reading glasses. I don't care about wearing glasses while reading. It's the active part of life I want to do without glasses.

Then he told me to be sure not to compare the two eyes after the surgery by covering up one and then the other and trying to figure out which eye was better. He said it would drive me nuts and that the eyes heal differently and the brain compensates for differences anyway.

I admitted that I do that all the time with my glasses and contacts. He swatted me with the chart and told me to stop that.

I started to relax.

But the thing that helped me most with my nerves was when he asked if I had any questions. I didn't have any about the procedure because you have to read and sign this thesis-length thing about all the what-ifs beforehand. But I had picked up on a slight accent in the doctor's speaking, so I asked where he was originally from, wondering if it was Europe.

Nope. Africa. Then he told me he went to Vanderbilt for college, then another school near Chattanooga that I wasn't familiar with, and then back to Vandy.

I told him I asked because my mom is German.

And he then told me, in German, that he studied German in school. We carried on a mini conversation in German.

It's funny what familiar thing will trigger a response and calm your nerves.

There were five of us having the surgery that day. We were all seated in a row for pre-op instructions. We received little gauzy surgical footies to put over our shoes, and a cap to match to put on our heads. We also had a neon green dot put on our foreheads stating what surgery exactly we were having done. I made a nervous comment about being ready to trick-or-treat in that outfit.

Dr. Woolfson came back in and told each of us what to expect during the procedure. And he mentioned again some post-surgery eye care. As he was heading into the surgery room, he said, "We stress all this because I'm certain I'll see one of you in Atlanta if you don't listen. And when you come visit me in Atlanta to fix whatever is wrong, be sure to bring my favorite chocolates."

One last comment: "Don't mess up my surgery."

The actual procedure was quicker than I expected. It was a bit uncomfortable, but no actual pain. At one point, it looked like he was painting my eyeball with a fingernail polish brush. Strange.

And then I went to a recovery room where the doctor checked my eyes several minutes later.

Residual nerves hit me afterwards. I was shaking like I was freezing and couldn't keep my teeth from chattering. All I could manage to tell the doctor was another thank you. But I could have hugged the man.

It was so much less scary than what I thought it would be.

Bruce dropped me off at home to unwind and rest while he went to his parent's house for supper. My mother-in-law had met the kids when they got off the school bus and had taken them to her house.

Right about then, the numbing drops wore off and I felt some pain. I popped an Advil and sat in the dark with my eyes closed, tears streaming down my face. I couldn't control them. I wasn't crying. It was just from the eye irritation.

I told Bruce later, it didn't even feel like something was in my eye, like what I'd heard. To me, it felt like I had been crying for hours and my eyes were puffy and tired from that. And they also felt achy and bruised, like after getting a black eye.

Bruce brought me home some supper, I took some pills they gave me, and I was in la-la land in no time.

The next morning, no pain. No discomfort. And I haven't had any since. Just that tired feeling.

I'm putting a couple of types of eye drops in my eyes four times a day. And I've had to wear these huge sunglasses all the time, except when I'm sleeping. When I'm sleeping, I tape these clear plastic lenses to my face. All this so I won't touch my eye and move the corneal flap the doctor made to correct my vision.

The absolute worst part of the whole experience... hands down... is peeling the tape off my cheeks and forehead each morning. Oh. My. Goodness. I'd rather have my brows waxed! Hmmm, with a little strategic placement of the tape, perhaps I can kill two birds with one stone and accomplish that very thing.

This morning, I drove my kids to school. And I told them it was the first time I had ever driven without glasses or contacts.

It's a wonderful thing, that God gave man the intelligence to figure out such a surgery. And that He created our bodies in a way that they recover from such things.

Here's the song I was thinking of all day, whenever I got scared. MercyMe "You Reign".



Praise God... He reigns... regardless of what's happening in our lives... Jesus reigns.

Thanks for all the prayers. I felt them!

Oh, I almost forgot. At my follow-up appointment the next morning, my vision was 20/20. God is so good.